by A. L. White
Jermaine had come toward the sound of the gun fire and threw himself into the fight with little to no regard for his own safety. When he got close enough to Al, Jermaine pointed toward Joey, lying on the ground in a pool of blood and, “Get your boy and go toward the exit. Taquisha should be there with that little girl and the dogs, I hope.”
Al picked up his bloody son, relieved to see that he was still alive, and helped Joey towards the exit sign. Behind him, Al could hear Jermaine gasping for breath and the swoosh of the ax, followed by a thick thud as it landed on its mark.
“Quick! Close the door before they get here!” a voice shouted at Lori.
“It isn’t safe to stay here. You can come with me and get out of this place, or you can stay here and die!” Lori yelled into the room.
“This is the only place that they can’t get into. You’re safe here,” the voice replied, sounding agitated with the door remaining open.
“I have a bus that can carry all of you with us, but you need to leave now!”
About ten people moved toward Lori, causing her to raise the crossbow up into a defensive position.
“We will go with you,” a voice said.
“Follow me, and stay close then. We are going to go out the exit on the far side. If you get separated, keep going that way and look for the bus on the road.”
The zombies were not heading toward the concession stand as Lori had thought. They were swarming around the first few aisles in the center. For them, it would be an easy run to the exit. She could smell the zombies on the wind blowing across the lot. It had troubled her earlier that she could smell them, but she was grateful now. It made it easier to move the new members of her party.
Arriving at the exit, Lori was relieved to see everyone there anxiously waiting. Joey looked badly hurt, but everyone else looked like they were in good shape despite their ordeal.
“We need to get to the bus,” Lori stated as she moved past them. Jermaine took Joey from Al, picking him up as if he were a rag doll.
“They are coming too,” a little boy said to Lori, pointing towards the entrance.
Lori looked back at a small group emerging from the exit. They moved quicker than the herd, but not by much. After the last of the new members were loaded onto the bus Joey was loaded into RV so that Zoe could do what she could for her great nephew. It would be Zoe who would have the final say in the matter. Roy climbed into the RV to be greeted by quizzical looks.
“I didn’t hear or see the flare, man!” Jermaine said as he grabbed Roy by the throat.
“Not now! We have to get moving,” Lori said as she left the RV, slamming shut the door.
“You and I are going to have a long talk when we stop, bro,” Jermaine dropped Roy to the floor of the RV, leaving his gasping to catch his breath.
*****
Doc had watched the two trucks head off to opposite ends of the town from the school’s roof before turning his attention back to the activity going on inside. Doc checked in on the progress of the rooms on the second floor, then moved on to the first floor. Everyone was pulling together nicely with the job of making the old school into a home. For as hard as the survivors were working, Doc knew that something was missing. Yes, they were doing what was asked of them, and doing it well; no one could complain. What was missing was a spark of life, he thought. The major difference right now, between them and the zombies, was that they could bleed and think clearly. If they were going to succeed and rebuild some kind of civilized existence Doc knew that they would have to find a way to return that spark of life.
It was then that the unmistakable smell of coffee had overcome his senses. Doc followed his nose down to the gymnasium/cafeteria where he found a rather large man and somewhat smaller woman putting the supplies away. Doc edged his way over to the large coffee urn, looking for anything that would serve as a cup.
“Cups are over there, below the counter,” the woman stated, not looking so small now that he was up close. Perhaps it was that the man was so large that he made Doc feel extra small himself.
“Help yourself,” she added.
“Don’t mind if I do,” Doc replied, reaching over the counter and fumbling around for a cup. Finding one, he held it under the spigot and reveled in the indulgent aroma of fresh coffee.
“Found three boxes of coffee earlier; I thought maybe people would like a cup after working so hard all day,” she added.
Doc took a sip, “Mmmm-ummm. That is a good cup of coffee, Miss...?”
“Tressa Harris is my name, and that over there is my uncle, Todd,” she replied motioning at the large man. “And you are the legendary Doctor Stewart, I believe?”
“You would be correct, Tressa. It is a pleasure to meet both of you and drink your coffee.”
Doc thought for a few minutes about the two floors he had just passed through above. This was the spark he was looking for. “Did someone ask you to do this?” Doc asked.
Tressa shook her head no, “We didn’t know that we had to get permission to put supplies up. Is there someone that we should have cleared it with first?”
“Heavens, no! I wish I knew how to get more people to be like you two.”
The large man stopped what he was doing and walked over to Doc, stopping only when he was hovering over him.
“Mister, maybe they don’t understand that they will get a surprise for helping out. Tressa says if I work hard I will get a surprise when we are all done. Right, Tressa?”
“Yes, Todd. Do you remember what the surprise is going to be?”
The large man screwed his face deep in thought staring at the ceiling as if the answer would magically appear before him.
“What is one of your favorite things to have on a cold winter’s day like this, Todd?” She asked him.
The answer was there and Doc could see, in his face, that the man had found it. Then with very little warning, he started jumping up and down while twirling around in circles yelling, “Hot coco with tiny marshmallows in it! Hot coco with tiny marshmallows in it!”
Tressa patted him on the back in an attempt to settle him back down, “Ok, Todd. If you want that hot coco, you need to get back to work. Those boxes aren’t going to move themselves are they?”
“They better not Tressa. I am going to move them all and get my hot chocolate!” As quick as he had moved in on Doc, he had moved back to the boxes.
Maybe it was the puzzled look on Doc’s face, maybe it was the way he hadn’t said anything after Todd came over by him. Whatever it was, Tressa felt she needed to speak up now before they found themselves, once again, on the outside looking in.
“My uncle is a very special soul. He is a five-year-old trapped in a grown man’s body.”
“A very, very large man’s body,” Doc replied shaking his head.
“Yes sir, he is large and strong as an ox. He doesn’t know that we are not stronger than he is. In Todd’s mind we are the larger and stronger ones.” Letting out a long, deep sigh she continued, “His whole life he has been picked on, made fun of, and bullied because of his size. Let me tell you this before you make your mind up about us, Doctor! That large mountain of a man that you’re deciding if you need to fear, watched his own parents--my grandparents--get ripped apart by the zombie while he cowered and cried for someone to help them. THAT is what to be afraid of, not my uncle!”
Doc took a step back and placed his coffee cup down. “I would like to have ten more of him, little lady. If you were thinking that I was about to put you out of here then you are wrong.” Doc could see the relief in the young woman’s face. “In fact, how would you like to be in charge of the kitchen for now?”
Tressa smiled and replied, “I think I would like that, for now.”
“Well then, I guess that is settled. Now we need to figure out how to get the others to pitch in on their own.”
Tressa thought for a few minutes then added, “That should be simple, assign them daily chores to do. It works wonders with Todd; makes him feel like
he is part of a team.
Doc thought a few minutes and liked the idea. They would assign chores out to every survivor here. They would be made responsible for pulling their weight from this point on.
CHAPTER 9
Jermaine opened the RV door and headed straight for the bus where he thought he would be able to calm himself down. Anyplace but where Roy was would be good enough for now.
“Virginia!” Al called out as the girls left the RV. Virginia turned and faced him, wondering what he could need from her.
“Do you think you could ride in the RV with Zoe, and let me ride with Lori for a little while?”
Virginia didn’t want to be in the RV, she liked riding in the truck with Lori and was about to say so when, from behind her, Lori answered for her. “Of course she will, Al! And she will take the dogs with her.”
Turning and giving Lori a questioning look while rolling her eyes, she turned back to Al, “For you and Zoe, the lads and I will ride in the RV.”
“If the roads don’t get any worse we should be in Rivers Crossing by the morning,” Lori stated.
“A lot can happen between now and the morning,” Virginia said as she motioned for the lads to follow her back into the RV. From inside she watched Al and Lori climb into the truck. A few minutes later she could feel the balding tires of the old RV slipping through the snow to keep up with the convoy. The RV was as quiet as a church during Sunday mass, except for Zoe’s calming words to Joey. Now and then she would come forward to get more towels or rags in her efforts to stem the bleeding. Zeus was keeping a close eye on her and Joey from a vantage point that forced Zoe to climb over him with every trip forward. She never complained or asked him to move. Occasionally she would reach down and pat him on the head in passing.
After several trips, Zoe motioned for Roy to let her sit next to Virginia. He begrudgingly moved over, and in his own way gave Virginia a hateful look. Zoe took one of Virginia’s hands and said to her, “Do you know why I asked Al to ask you to ride with me, child?”
At that moment Virginia knew why she was in the RV with amazing clarity. Zoe didn’t think that Joey was going to make it. More than that, Zoe must have thought that Joey was going to turn.
“When the time comes, you want me to do what needs to be done,” Virginia replied.
The first signs of tears were starting to show in Zoe’s eyes as she reached over and fully embraced Virginia. “I am not asking you to do it, child. I am asking you to do it if, when the time comes, I can’t.”
Zoe let Virginia go and returned to where Joey was laying; leaving Virginia to think about what she had said.
“You really think you’re something, don’t you?” Roy said, more as a statement than a question. Virginia slid over to him real close. Close enough that Taquisha and Pam had noticed. It was closer than even Pam had been to Roy in a long time.
With her lips nearly touching Roy’s face, Virginia said, “I saw what you did tonight from up on top of the bus. I know exactly what you did, and that you stood there, in front of that woman, and her father, and told a bunch of lies.”
Roy made a motion to move away from her when Perseus let out a low menacing growl, causing him to still. Virginia raised a finger to his lips and pressed it against him. “If you give me any reason, anything at all, I will let those dogs rip your throat out and feed what is left of you to the Zombies. Perhaps, before I put poor Joey out of his misery, I will let him eat you. Wouldn’t that be justice?”
Roy froze in place, feeling like he might pee his pants if Virginia made the slightest move on him. Instead Virginia slid back to the place where she had been sitting. Pam wanted to say something, but the words didn’t come to her. Pam wanted to know what the girl had said, but at the same time she just wanted the odd, little kid as far from her as possible.
“You know this has all been foretold in the bible,” Taquisha stated as she closed her eyes. “The Lord took home all of the good people, and left the evil ones to deal with the devil’s minions.”
There wasn’t a chance to reply to Taquisha; Zoe came out and motioned for Virginia to come to the back of the RV. Rising slowly, Virginia pulled an arrow out of her quiver and made the short walk back to join Zoe, who was looking down on Joey. His eyes were black, and the tone of his skin had begun to turn gray. He looked nothing at all like Lori had on the night Virginia snuck onto the bus to say good bye.
Knowing why she was summoned to the back, and being able to do it now that she was back there, were two different things. Yes, Virginia could kill a zombie without thinking twice, or even reflecting on it afterward. This was Joey. Someone she knew--and had in some small way--even kind of liked. Looking down on him now, Virginia saw the transformation taking place, but she also saw Joey.
“Are you positive that this is what you want?” Virginia asked Zoe.
“It’s not what I want, child. It’s what needs to be done before he puts everyone in the RV in danger.”
Virginia raised the arrow up high as Joey’s dead eyes stared up at her. For an instant, she thought there were signs of Joey looking at her, pleading with her for life. Then the low guttural growl rumbled deep in his throat.
The arrow came down with blinding speed into the center of his eye. Pulling it out, Virginia sank it deep into the other eye with a twisting motion. There was no more movement that she could see or feel. Joey had been a good friend; now she had ended him at Zoe’s request. It wasn’t fair that someone as good as Joey had to go this way while a piece of shit like Roy was still alive.
Turning to exact justice for Joey from Roy’s flesh, Virginia ran smack into Zoe who threw her arms around her. “I am sorry you had to do that for me, child. I just couldn’t.”
“I can make this right.”
Zoe pushed Virginia back to see her face and look into her eyes. “Make what right, Virginia?”
“I can make Roy pay for what he did,” Virginia replied.
Zoe pulled her into another deep hug, stroking her hair and said softly, “Only God can make this right, child. He will settle all things when each of us meets him.”
Virginia pulled back in shock. How could Zoe think that there is still a God, if there ever had been one in the first place? That man sat out there alive and smug, because he was a coward that ran before warning the others. They were lucky that only one had died because of him, and not the whole group! Virginia thought.
“Look at me, Virginia!” Zoe ordered in that Aunt Zoe way that demanded respect and compliance. “We will give that man out there a chance to prove himself. We will give him another chance, because it is the Christian thing to do. We will give him another chance, because it is what I want to do!”
“But he…”
“He did nothing worse than be afraid! I am afraid nearly all the time, child! He did not kill my nephew; those creatures did.”
In Virginia’s world, everything was cut and dry; black and white. Zombies were bad so you killed them, with the same amount of thought as you would when stepping on a cockroach. You killed them or they ate you; it was as simple as that. Now she was being asked to look for a higher reason to not kill someone who deep down she knew would bring harm, who would place the group in danger. That didn’t work in Virginia’s world.
Zoe could see the confusion in Virginia’s face, “Now, if someone with two large dogs wanted to keep an eye on him--just to make sure that there was no more shenanigans--I believe the good Lord wouldn’t have a problem with that, and neither would I.”
Virginia smiled, “I will signal the others that we need to stop to take care of Joey.”
“Thank you, child. You do that,” Zoe said, letting her pass.
Once the signal was passed on from the RV to the bus, and finally to Lori, the group once again came to a stop. There was no question in anyone’s mind as to why they were stopping. There was a little bit of concern about how safe it would be, but everyone understood why. Lori and Al walked the area looking for signs of the dead moving near. Lori
ventured a little further from the vehicles than Al did, but she thought that was ok. It had been a long and painful day for Al.
“I don’t think we can bury him here, or that we should even try,” Al said to Lori.
“We can keep moving until we find a better place, Al. It’s up to you.”
“No, he is my son and I don’t think I want to ride with him since the change started, so I am sure no one else does either,” Al replied.
Zoe came towards them from the RV, moving slowly through the snow. “Is this the best we can find, Albert?”
Al rolled his eyes while his face was looking away from her. “The ground is frozen, Aunt Zoe, and a little way down the hill you can see the zombies are moving. I don’t know how much time we will have here.”
“Surely you are not planning on leaving my nephew, your son, lying out here in the snow?”
“It may be best to burn the body, Zoe,” Lori added. “Just to be safe.”
“I would like to say a few words over him before we do that,” Zoe pleaded.
Lori could feel the zombies off in the darkness, even if she couldn’t quite see them right now. It wasn’t a feeling; she knew they were there. Just like she knew that Zoe and Al were standing right in front of her.
“Whatever you want to do, Zoe. Let’s just do it quickly, if we can.”
Virginia watched from off to the side as firewood was hauled from the back of the truck to make a bed for Joey to lay on. There wasn’t much conversation as Zoe walked up to her great nephew and said a few prayers. A few times her voice broke up, but she continued to the end. Al didn’t have the strength to say anything, but she could see what he was thinking in his eyes. Silently, he walked back and lit a quickly fashioned torch, then turned back to his son. “God, please take my son into your loving arms,” Al said as he touched the torch to the gas soaked firewood. With a blaze, Joey was engulfed in flames and it was all over. Everyone silently turned back toward the vehicles.
Taquisha watched the small crowd retreat from the funeral pyre and shook her head.