“He wasn’t home,” Crate said, annoyed. “Car’s gone. Shed was unlocked.”
No one spoke for a few minutes. Crate vanished into the back, and Misty went into the deli and returned with a radio, which she plugged into an outlet behind the counter. On the television, the CBS eye stared and stared, and on the radio voices crackled in the static. Misty worked her way through the dial: preachers declaring the imminent return of the Lord and Savior, radicals calling for their surviving comrades to take to the streets and use the chaos to their advantage. On one of the few stations with clear reception, a scientist discussed the rapidity with which the phenomenon was spreading and recited dire extrapolations.
“No, no,” someone said, infuriated. “Jesus, why don’t you understand this? It’s simple. Everyone who dies gets up, not just those who are bitten. The infection from the bite kills you, yes, but it’s not the bite that—”
A familiar-sounding voice on the NBC station discussed the Middle East news blackout and what it might mean. On the CBS station, a White House official insisted that the President would soon be addressing the nation and that he had not been killed, despite the ridiculous rumors stating otherwise.
“No good news,” Misty said.
“No,” Reggie said, and knew: Nef was dead. She had to be. Part of him hoped she was, and that it had been quick, because he’d never make it, he would never find her. Both of them would die wondering if the other was alive.
“I guess I always expected to be around when it all went to shit,” Misty said. “I just never expected it to be like this.”
“We never expect it to be the way it is,” Reggie said, walking away. A little radio went a long way—he’d heard enough. He grabbed another beer from the cooler and sat down. He downed half within seconds and told himself that now was probably the time to take it easy. Things could go south fast, and he’d pretty much been drinking off and on throughout the entire day. His eyes felt heavy, his movements sluggish. The beginnings of a headache crawled between his brain and his skull.
Crate crept out, carrying his rifle. He wore a different shirt and his long hair was wet and brushed back from his haggard face. He brought the stink of cheap cologne splashed upon days-old filth, and Reggie was grateful when the old man excused himself. The bell jingled, and he was gone, though his memory lingered upon the air.
Stacy emerged from the back, got a beer from the cooler, and sat at the middle table, next to Reggie. At this rate, they’d all have no choice but to stop drinking. Or to keep on knocking it back until the bloody end.
They exchanged small talk, and Reggie tried to fight it, but there it was: he wanted Stacy, plain and simple, just like that. He barely knew her, he had no idea if he’d even be able to tolerate her for more than a day, but already the gears were turning deep down within his mind—it was a new world, a dangerous one, and she needed someone to protect her. Not a very Women’s Lib idea, he realized, but it wasn’t a very Women’s Lib world anymore.
Hell—maybe he just needed something to take his mind off of Nef. If that was the case, fucking was about as good a distraction as he could hope for.
“…about you saving this guy’s life.” Sitting across from Cardo, Misty stared at him, blinking.
“What?”
“Let’s hear it. Your story.”
They spent the next hour swapping stories, starting with Cardo, who told of the riot at Proust’s, the gassing of the town, and the nearly two days he spent on the roof while the dead residents of Beistle moved like ghosts through the streets. Reggie wasn’t sure if Cardo had left out any details, but when his own turn came, he didn’t mention the dumb kid or shooting the asshole and looting his kitchen.
He suspected Cardo had indeed left out a few things, and that was his right. Misty’s apparent lie, too, was probably just that—a willfully omitted detail, a terrible little something no one need ever know. He suspected they all had their own terrible little somethings, each and every one of them, and before long, they’d probably have more.
“I need sleep,” Cardo said, and Misty told him to take the couch. It only had two cushions—one of them had been soaked in blood and had to be thrown out, but he was welcome to what was left.
Not yet moving from where he sat, he thanked her, rubbing his eyes. Misty excused herself, got up, and joined Crate on the porch, leaving Reggie alone with Stacy and Cardo and forgetting her gun on the table.
Reggie considered grabbing it, and from the look on Cardo’s face, he had similar thoughts. They looked at each other, and something unspoken passed between them: leave it. They’d gotten in good with these people. They had a place for the night, and no one was pointing guns at anybody. The old man outside still had his rifle, and who knew what else?
Stacy—some people call me Starshine, for Christ’s sake—looked at the gun as if it would bite off her fingers. She wouldn’t be picking up a gun anytime soon.
He got up and walked to the television, once more flipping through the entire dial. The CBS eye remained, though for how much longer was anyone’s guess. He killed the television and returned to the tables, sitting across from Stacy.
“So?” Cardo said.
Reggie looked at him, eyebrows raised.
“You leaving?” Cardo asked, but Reggie could not keep his eyes off of Stacy. She sat staring at the beer bottle in her hand, and when she looked up and found Reggie’s eyes upon her, the shadow of a smile touched her lips. A little bit fearful.
“Yeah.”
“When?” Stacy asked.
Reggie looked at his watch. It was almost five. They’d been here for nearly six hours—the sun would be down within three. “Tomorrow,” he said, looking at Cardo. “Get some sleep, man.”
“I don’t want to stay here,” Stacy said, touching his hand. “When you leave, can I go with you?”
Thirty
“What are we going to do?” Misty said.
Crate circled the burn pile. He carried a red aluminum gas can and swung it back and forth, splashing gasoline onto the corpses, saturating their clothes and filling their gaping mouths and skulls. The wind changed, and the stink of gas and death washed over her. She took a few steps back, but that did no good—the smell was everywhere.
“We’re going to take care of this,” he said, starting to cap the spout, thinking differently, and then pouring a little more fuel onto the fat man’s legs. Bilbo Baggins kept his distance.
“You know what I mean,” she said through clenched teeth. The wind changed, but the smell lingered. In the south, dark clouds tumbled together. They were in for another round of storms—heavier than the last, by the looks of it.
Crate capped the can and took a few steps backward. Setting it down, he fished a pack of matches from his pocket. The match flared up between his fingers. He flicked his wrist, and a surge of fire engulfed the bodies, which crackled and hissed. Misty watched as Charles leaned forward, his hair ablaze, a thin line of dark fluid running from his gaping mouth and bubbling upon his chest, his clawed hands curling toward his chest.
She looked down at her feet, and eventually Crate was beside her and leaning in close. She didn’t have to look at him to know that his eyes were on the fire.
“Where is your gun, woman?”
Misty looked down at her pants, certain for some reason that the gun had been crammed into her right hip pocket.
“I think I left it on the table inside.”
“That’s smart,” he said, shaking his head. She winced, certain that he was going to hit her. It had been years since he’d given her a shiner, but the look in his eyes made it seem like yesterday.
“How much have you had to drink?”
“A few beers,” she said.
“A few beers, yeah. You need to lay off for a while, Misty.”
He rarely called her by her real name anymore—these days it was all woman and you and hey and, when she was lucky, honey—and whenever he did say that, she could not help but feel a little swell of some kind.
“You can’t kill them,” she said, and he stiffened beside her. She felt his gaze upon her.
“We can’t keep taking in strays.”
“I know, but you heard them—they’re leaving tomorrow.”
“That’s a good truck,” Crate said, eyeing the newcomer’s rig. “I can drive that truck. We may want to use that truck.”
“Jesus, Crate,” she said, and it occurred to her that she could march right into the store, right now, and tell Cardo and the colored trucker that Crate was crazy, that he meant to shoot them and take the truck. They’d gun him down before he got one foot in the store. She could do that, but she wouldn’t. There was another way, of course—she just had to get his guns, and that would be that. Without his guns, he was just a skinny old fart with a filthy bird’s nest of a beard hanging from his face.
“Jesus nothing, woman,” he said. “I looked in the truck. There’s a lot of food in there.”
“There’s a lot of food in the store.”
“Not for long, if we keep opening our doors to everyone.”
“What did you want me to do? Cardo’s a cop, for God’s sake.”
“Yeah, and his buddies are lying dead out back. All it takes is for one of them to get nosy, and we’re done for.”
“They’re leaving,” she said, looking him in the eyes. “Just let them. Don’t do anything. Okay?”
He drew his chin back, sized her up, like he was wondering if maybe she had just threatened him. She wasn’t sure she hadn’t.
The fire raged, pumping smoke into the air in a churning black column. Crate had been right about the grease fire: liquid fat boiled out of Haggarty’s corpse and pooled flaming around the burn pile.
Feeling Crate’s eyes boring into her, she went inside. Cardo was nodding off at the table, and Stacy and the trucker were talking in hushed tones—she was looking at him as if it were all she could do to keep from fucking him right then and there. Not that Misty could blame her.
She showed Cardo to the back, where he lay on the couch with his upper body on the two remaining seat cushions and his feet in the dirty, coin- and dirt-filled hollow where the now burning third cushion had once rested.
“Want the TV on?” She asked.
“Hunh?” He said, looking at her with confused, bleary eyes.
“TV?”
“God, no,” the cop said. “That damned eye has always freaked me out.”
She laughed once. “Me too,” she said. Cardo mumbled something in response, and was silent. He rolled onto his side, his back to her, and she stepped around the couch and to the window. Her feet felt too heavy, and her head felt like it was somewhere else, far away and spinning. Crate was right—she needed to stop drinking.
She parted the curtains and peered out. Tasgal’s car was gone. She wasn’t sure when Crate had moved it, but he had. The garage door was closed, and that was that. Cardo would never know.
Feeling a little better, a little more at ease, she went upstairs and into her bedroom. She sat down and knocked back the bottle of whisky she’d slipped under her side of the bed, telling herself that it would be her final hit of the day and realizing as she drew it from her lips that Charles had been the last person to drink from it.
Charles. Stupid annoying Charles who didn’t mind how she looked naked, who went at her like a young man and who never complained, not even when she pushed his face down between her legs and told him to go to town. Charles, who’d wept and cried while Karlatos and his pals had begun to clean the place out, and who’d fallen silent as they’d peeled away Stacy’s clothes. Charles, who hadn’t looked away.
She understood. Part of her understood everything—his fear, his cowardice, even his lust. What else was a coward to do in such a situation, but weep and beg? And what else should such a man—a man who’d probably never touched beautiful flesh in his life, not even once—do when witness to such a sight, but stare?
And yet she felt nothing, nothing at all. He was gone, now little more than ash and bones, and she felt nothing. She took another long draw from the bottle, capped it, and returned it to its place under the bed.
There was a sound, muffled and familiar. She held her breath, tilted her head to one side, as if that actually helped one to hear, and there it was. It took her a few more seconds to realize what it was: Crate’s dog was barking.
The whisky burning in her chest, she stood up and looked around, realizing that she’d forgotten where she’d placed her gun. The bedside table was empty, as was the bed.
“Stupid,” she said, remembering that it was downstairs, on one of the tables. She took a step toward the bedroom door, and that’s when Crate’s rifle popped two times. By the time she reached the stairs, gripping the railing and walking nearly sideways, with her shoulder pressed to the wall, Crate had squeezed off three more rounds.
Thirty-One
Reggie felt his eyes glazing over. His conversation with Stacy had gone well enough so far—about as well as anyone could expect, anyway, given the circumstances. Then he mentioned his daughter, and things took a turn. Hippie nonsense wasn’t new to him, and though he really wasn’t surprised to hear it rolling out of Stacy’s mouth, he was disappointed nonetheless. She’d gone from making sense to telling him that he could sense if his daughter was still alive, if he just believed enough, to regaling him with the details of her dead husband’s communications with her from the astral plane. From there she’d moved on to the nature of the soul, specifically as related to the ever expanding population of walking corpses bringing civilization to its knees.
The souls of the walking dead were earthbound, she’d assured him, and a blow to the head not only killed the flesh but freed the soul to move into the light. She knew it, she just knew it. More importantly, she felt it.
Throughout it all, he could not tell if she actually believed what she was saying or not, or if it was all just a nonsense security blanket. He was almost happy when the dog piped up and the first two shots rang out, bringing her spiel to an abrupt end.
“Oh, God,” she said, and they were both on their feet. She stood too quickly, and her chair tipped backward, striking an end-cap display of beef jerky. She looked at him, eyes wide, opened her mouth to say something.
“Shh.” He held up a silencing hand. “Behind me.”
Outside, the old man’s dog barked and barked, without pause. Face frozen in an almost comical expression of worry, Stacy listened, and they stood that way for a few interminable seconds, before the next three shots were fired, one immediately after the other. With the third shot, silence fell. Crate’s dog no longer barked.
Shotgun ready, he took one step toward the entrance. To his right, Cardo burst into the store through the door leading into the back. Reggie wheeled in his direction. His hands were tight around the gun—his right forefinger hovered above the trigger—but did not raise it.
“What’s happening?” Cardo said, his words slurring together. His hair was a mess and the look in his eyes was one that Reggie had seen many times in Vietnam, often in the mirror and in the tired and dirt-streaked faces of those on both sides of the battle.
“Your guess is as good as mine,” Reggie said. He looked at Stacy. “Stay right here.”
“But we should probably get upst—”
“Stay right here. We may need to make a fast getaway, and you won’t be able to do that from upstairs.” He looked at Cardo. “Let’s go.”
Before they reached the door, Crate slipped into the store, reaching up and muting the bell with one cupped hand. He eased shut the door, locked it, and slapped off the light. The overhead fluorescents winked out, casting the interior of the store into twilight.
“Shhh,” Crate said, pressing the forefinger of his left hand to his lips. His beard plumed around his gnarled hand, threatened to consume it. His words came in a frenzied whisper. “Shut up. Don’t make a sound.”
“What is—” Reggie began, also whispering, but the panic on the old man’s face shut him up.
; Misty emerged from the back, stumbling, a stupid look on her face, her eyes perfect cartoon circles in their wrinkled nests of flesh.
“Shut up, woman,” Crate said, before she even had a chance to open her mouth.
Reggie and Cardo exchanged a glance, and then they slowly closed the distance between themselves and the old man. Crate watched their advance with baleful eyes, and when he opened his mouth to hiss a warning, Reggie touched his index finger to his own lips.
“Shh,” he said, nudging past the old man and to the door. He cracked the blinds, leaned close. To his left, a few slats down, Cardo did the same.
The fire no longer raged, but it had not burned out. Flames danced, and smoke wafted into the air. Untouched by the fire, the fat man’s leg’s were intact from the knees down—they rested upon the gravel, turned inward, the tips of his shoes pointing at one another.
Four corpses, actual dead corpses, were sprawled like fallen dolls near the place where gravel met black asphalt. Five more corpses shuffled by, moving slowing, aimlessly in the dull evening light. One of them sank to its knees beside the body of Bilbo Baggins, prodded its stomach.
“Why’d you shoot your dog?” Reggie said, his voice a hair above a whisper.
“Be quiet, you stupid idiot,” the old man snapped.
“You shot Bilbo?” Misty said, and Reggie realized for the first time just how drunk the old gal was. The beer from the cooler hadn’t done the job, and she must’ve gone up top to hit the hard stuff.
“He wouldn’t shut up.” The old man’s voice cracked. “There are so many of them. I tried to get him to, but he wouldn’t. I had to. He wouldn’t…”
“So many?” Stacy said, and Reggie could tell that she was closer now.
“…he just wouldn’t shut up.”
“Oh, shit,” Cardo said. There were now eight walking corpses shuffling within one hundred feet of where they stood. While Reggie watched, another dead body—a topless woman whose breasts had been chewed away and now hung from her chest in ragged, deflated sacks—stumbled from behind his truck. Her wounds glistened in the flickering orange glow of the burn pile, and she raised an arm to shield her eyes.
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