Life Among The Dead

by Daniel Cotton

  The people at the table greet the unexpected visitors warmly. They pause mid meal so the soldiers can join them. Chairs are brought to the table, Dane pulls Rash’s out for her. The female soldier’s stomach growls as she catches a whiff of the most heavenly aroma she has ever smelled. In the center of the table there is some kind of roast. She is virtually dizzy from anticipation.

  “Everyone,” Dane addresses the people of Sinclair. “These soldiers have come to check on how we’re doing.”

  “And, then we need to get to Fort Breyers.” Lynton adds as if trying to make it perfectly clear. He doesn’t count twenty-three among those present.

  “I just thought it would be nice if they ate first.” Dane finishes.

  “That would be lovely,” An old woman stands. Most of the diners are middle aged, except for Dane and one other young man who looks to be 19 years old. “Let me fix you a plate.”

  Rash’s mouth waters as the woman slices off slabs of meat with a large carving knife and lays them onto a plate. She sees the meat has an unusual garnish. It might be a stamp, or some kind of brand. She wonders what kind of roast it is but, doesn’t want to sound rude.

  “What kind of roast is this?” Lynton asks, not minding if he sounds ungrateful.

  “Well,” An old man responds. “Beggars can’t be choosers in days as dark as these. I was in Scotland once, when I was a young man, enjoying the most interesting and delicious meal I have ever had. And, then I learned what haggis really is. I think it is best not to know some things.”

  “I’m so hungry I could eat just about anything right now.” Rash savagely dives into her plate. It might not have been the greatest thing she has ever eaten, but at the moment it’s delicious. Dane doesn’t join the dinner party. He waves away a plate that is offered to him.

  “I need to get back to the bakery.” He tells everyone. “I left my gun back there. Plus, I have some other stuff I want to get done before I relax.”

  “So, are you sergeants from Fort Breyers?” A man asks.

  “No.” Lynton answers.

  “Just visiting then?”

  “We’re from Eagle Rock. It fell to the zombies. We just want to get to a new base.”

  “A man without a country.”

  “I have a country.” Lynton looks up from his food. “I just have no way to save it.”

  A woman in the back of the room by the fire looks to be preparing a future meal. She is hard at work plucking some kind of bird. The sound of the chore gives Rash the chills. Despite the distasteful de-feathering of the fowl Rash and Lynton polish off their plates.

  “We should get going.” Lynton says to his partner as he wipes his mouth with a cloth napkin. An unnoticeable glance passes through the hosts; the soldiers are seized from behind.

  “What the fuck!” Rash protests as she is held against the table by unseen hands. Lynton is slammed down as well. Their eyes meet. “Zee?”

  The fear in his partner and longtime friend’s eyes gives Zee a boost of adrenaline. He forces himself off the table against the attackers. More hands are added to try and control him. All the men in the room are called upon to bring down the giant like Lilliputians trying to subdue Gulliver. The few not involved in the struggle remove the platters and plates of food from the table.

  Lynton bellows an inhuman roar. He flexes his powerful muscles against thin fingers. They lose their grip on his beefy arms. No sooner does he find leverage against the strangers, do they find a way to take it back. The people of Sinclair just keep grabbing at the large man. Lynton isn’t about to give in. He gets stronger and stronger the angrier he gets, even after the carving knife slides across his throat.

  “Zee!” Rash sees the cut from the corner of her eye. Lynton’s blood sprays onto the white tablecloth and rains down upon her face mixing with her tears. Her best and only friend in the world is going to die right in front of her.

  Despite the mortal wound they have delivered, Zee still fights. Though his strength is draining out of him with every drop of blood that soaks into the tablecloth, he continues to fight for his freedom, and for Rash.

  “Do it the right way.” Someone says from the other side of the room. A single gunshot is fired. Rash had lost sight of her resilient pal, until his head comes down hard onto the table. His lifeless eyes gaze into hers.

  Tears flow sideways from her eyes. They cross the bridge of her nose and drip from her temple onto the red sticky cloth below.

  “Shouldn’t we do this one?” A male voice asks.

  “Perhaps wait until she’s needed?” Another voice answers.

  “Zee.” Rash whispers. “Why?”

  “We don’t want her to spoil.”

  Rash knows now what this is all about. The roast. It wasn’t a stamp, or a brand, or a garnish. It was a tattoo. They’re going to eat us, she thinks with horror. Her view of her fallen friend blurs from her tears.

  “We can’t freeze the meat outside now that winter is over. We’ll have to lock her in a room until the big one is gone.”

  “Or, you can just let her the fuck go.” A calm, deep voice suggests behind the cannibals. Lynton’s body slides from the table and onto the floor as the natives turn to see the owner of the new voice.

  “Leave the gun on the table.” The tall, weathered stranger orders. “Atta boy. Now! All you nuts, get over there.”

  He indicates that he wants them to move to the far side of the room. He punctuates his point with the shotgun he holds one handed. In his other hand is a large caliber pistol.

  Rash is freed from the cumbersome hands. She sits back in her chair, having to peel her face from the blood soaked tablecloth. She sees her savior for the first time. He has salt and pepper hair, and holds two large guns as if they weigh nothing.

  “Are you ok, girlie?” He asks the stunned female soldier. Her glazed eyes just stare at him.

  “Zee.” She manages to say.

  “Is that French?”

  “Huh?”

  “Forget it. You’re cute; you’ll go far in life.” He directs his attention back to the hostile hosts after cracking his neck. “As for you savages…”

  The guns he holds move from face to face as smoothly as a tank’s turret. He picks out the two in the crowd he finds to be the most likely to give him grief; a punk teenager and a middle-aged man.

  “Where the fuck is my truck?” He asks. Seconds pass with no answer. Without a warning, or asking a second time, he fires the pistol in his left hand, taking the older target’s head off. The revolver moves and locks onto another face.

  “Where the fuck is my truck?” He asks again, putting more space between the words.

  “Edge of town.” The teen spits out. “Eastside.”

  “Progress. Are those my birds?” He nods to a coop in the back corner of the room.

  “Yes.” A frightened woman answers.

  “Gather them up for me.”

  The woman hurries to collect the plucked and headless pigeons into a basket. Only one remains alive in the cage. She puts both the cage and basket on the table and backs away fast. The man looks at his hobby, reduced to bloody scraps of squab.

  “Fucking animals.” He mutters.

  “We had no choice.” An old woman defends her society’s actions. “We tried to find food. No one would share. Our people traveled to an Ultramart. It should’ve been empty, but somebody had already claimed it. The only one who had survived brought our dead back. We had to…”

  “Yeah, yeah. I get it. When in Rome.” The man taps the living soldier with his foot. “Sweetie, if you can understand me, now is the time to prove it. I need you to get up.”

  Rash stands up.

  “Good. See that rifle on the table? It’s my Nephew’s. Bring it here please.”

  Rash complies and holds it out for him to grab while staying out of his line of fire.

  “I’m actually a little swamped right now. Could you…”

  Rash inserts his arm into the sling of the rifle. She notices his arm
doesn’t waver with the added weight, even though he has been holding the shotgun one handed for quite some time. He hasn’t budged an inch.

  “Good job. I see two more just like this one on the floor, a his and hers set I reckon. I’ll take one of them if you want to carry the other.”

  Rash hangs another rifle on his rigid arm and once more he remains solid. Years and years of holding milk jugs aloft have trained his body for this exact task. He could hold a bead on a stationary target all day if he had to. He doesn’t even have to look to shoot, as long as his mark doesn’t move too much. The jugs have honed his body. It is the exercise of a gunslinger.

  “Groovy.” The man thanks the shocked soldier. “If you wouldn’t mind grabbing my birds. Just throw the dead ones in the cage, and we can split.”

  “I can’t leave him here.” Rash shakes her head and looks at her friend’s limp body. His blood drips from the once white cloth on the table and pools on the floor.

  “Don’t take this the wrong way… Your friend is dead weight, and these folks need to eat.” He has trouble telling her this, but he has something planned that will make it all better. Though she hates herself for it, Rash leaves the room with the man.

  “Stand here. Watch them for me.” The older man says. He wants her to stay in the doorway while he runs into the lobby. His twin M-16s bounce noisily off one another as he jogs holding his other guns to the ceiling at ear level. She watches him baffled, he nears the front entrance and kicks the door wide open with one blow.

  “Hey, dickheads! Dinner bell!” He calls to the dead on the streets of Sinclair. He comes back and passes by Rash. “If they want to eat like fucking zombies, they might as well be fucking zombies. Come on!”

  She follows him through the halls, passing rooms with no doors. Moaning can be heard entering the building, and then they hear the screams from the banquet room. She knows that she and her hero will be safe. Zee’s blood will lure the dead, and allow us to escape. They dash upstairs. He takes her to a room.

  “This is the way I came in.” The man tells her by an open window, she can see a narrow plank bridge that extends out to the next building. He takes the birdcage from her. “Go first.”

  She doesn’t question him. She crawls along the narrow expansion, this one apparently made of old picnic table benches. It is much smaller than the others she had crossed with Dane and Zee; just slightly wider than she is.

  Rash watches the stranger come across. He pushes the cage ahead of him with the barrel of his shotgun. The pistol must have been holstered because his other hand is free to grip the edge of the planks. He must angle his body as he crawls along so the two rifles he has slung don’t slide off of his shoulder.

  He clears the ledge and is already off to the next high wire act, after taking the time to knock the narrow bridge off the roof. The soldier doubts the people of this town will be following, but the man must want to be sure. Rash can’t move, she feels a sharp pain in her stomach. The weight of whoever she had eaten churns as her body digests it. She has nightmare images of the person reconstituting him or herself, and enacting vengeance from within.

  The man returns to her side as she doubles over, one arm cradles her stomach and the other rests on her knees. He is at a loss as to what to say to her.

  “My name is Bruce.” He offers her his hand. She ignores him. He doesn’t think there is any urgency in getting out of this town, but he really wants to get back on the road. He feels bad for what he is about to do, but he figures it has to help her. It sure can’t hurt.

  “We’ve got to get moving, Doll Face.” He says. She straightens her body as best she can. The result is a hunch as she walks very slowly to the next bridge. “So, tell me, what does human flesh taste like?”

  She wretches onto the gravel rooftop in spasming heaves. The stream of vomit splashes on the flat surface, spraying Bruce’s feet. He doesn’t care about that. He just wants her to get rid of her meal and get moving. The heaves subside and she wipes her mouth.

  “Is all the MANwich out of your system?” He asks her, bringing on another bought of regurgitation. This one is shorter lived. Once finished, the pain in her stomach is gone and she is able to stand normally once again.

  “Sorry ‘bout that.” He says looking at the mess the girl has just made. “Let’s move.”

  They cross three more bridges until they reach the edge of town. Bruce looks towards the woods that border the east side. He can see the setting sunlight reflect off of something shiny beyond the trees.

  They climb down a rope ladder and up an embankment that leads to the woods. A field is on the other side. Several cars are parked; among them is the Road Master. Bruce helps her into the high truck.

  As soon as the king enters he starts taking inventory. He is looking for something specific, but can’t locate it. He looks in the glove compartment and under the seats; it is nowhere to be found. He looks behind the seats and finds something odd. He laughs at the irony.

  Rash just looks at him as he sits there giggling. His hand is on the keys ready to turn the engine over, but he is too busy laughing to start it. He notices her staring at him. He wants to share what he finds so funny, he just doesn’t know if she’ll see the humor in it.

  “They had my truck and all that’s in it, right?” He wipes a tear. “I have like twenty sandwiches back here they didn’t find.”

  She isn’t laughing. He turns the key and they are bombarded by a blast from the speakers, classic heavy metal erupts out of nowhere. They both catch their breath in their throats in surprise. Bruce hits the button and kills the angry tune. He forgot he had put that disk in.

  The girl sits quietly as Bruce backs out of the spot the bikers had parked his truck. Buckshot pelts the back window, sending shards of glass at them. They both duck down. Bruce reaches up to maneuver his rearview mirror to see who it is. He spots the tow truck pulling into the impromptu impound yard with an olive green truck behind it.

  “That’s what he had to go do.” Rash says looking into the mirror.

  “Who is it?” Bruce asks.

  “The muffin man.” She responds, aiming one of the M-16s at the windshield of the wrecker. She fires a few short bursts.

  “I don’t know what it is,” Bruce shakes his head and mumbles. “It’s just plain sexy.”

  The body of the man driving the tow truck dances in his seat as bullets enter his chest cavity. She doesn’t bother with a headshot, cursing him to rise again.

  “So, how do you know the muffin man?” Bruce asks, pulling onto the road. He is pretty sure he has to head south to connect to the road in which he was attacked on. The girl is quiet for a long time.

  “He ‘saved’ us when we showed up in his town. He covered us while we ran into his bakery. He gave us muffins he had made. I thought he was very nice and cute. He turned out to be like the witch in Hansel and Gretel, fattening us up before…” The girl starts to cry.

  Bruce was never good with people. He has no idea what to say when a girl starts crying. Her friend was just slain; he feels he has to say something.

  “Like I said before, I’m Bruce.” He re-introduces himself. That’s stupid, he thinks.

  “I’m Rash.” She says with a sniff.

  “I hope that’s a nickname given for your impetuous nature, and not something more… Contagious.” What the hell is wrong with me?

  She exhales a brief chuckle. That’s progress, Bruce thinks.

  “I’m sorry… I wish I had gotten there sooner.” He shakes his head with remorse.

  “My name is short for Rashida. Rashida Steele.” She wipes her eyes with the heels of her hands. Her face is still stained with her friend’s blood. “So, we’re going to New Hampshire?”

  “Holy shit! Are you psychic?”

  “I found this.” She reaches into her shirt and pulls out a hard cover notebook entitled the King of the Road. She thinks it’s what he was looking for earlier. “Your diary, right?”

  “Diary? What’re you nuts?�
� He denies while taking the book from her and tucking it under his leg. “What kind of grown ass man keeps a diary? Yeah, we’re going to New Hampshire, Vermelho to be exact.”

  “Can we make a stop first?” She asks.

  “What did you leave the oven on or something?”

  “No.” She laughs a little. She feels guilty for laughing when her friend has just died, but she finds Bruce to be funny. “My friend and I had a deal. We’d check one more military base before settling somewhere. Fort Eagle rock and Fort Scott are both dead zones.”

  “Yeah, sure.” He says looking at his wrist, which holds no watch. “I’m making great time. It’s amazing how far you can get when you don’t have a pesky speed limit to adhere to. We have plenty of time for sightseeing.”

  Bruce appraises his new companion. She sure will make this trek easier, he thinks. She’s as cute as a button, if you can look past all the blood on her face. He isn’t sure if it’s too soon to offer her something to eat or not. He grabs a can of soda for her so she can at least get the taste of her meal’s return trip out of her mouth.

  “Thank you.” She says.

  “Let me know if you get hungry. We have plenty of sandwiches, like I said before. There’s also chips and candy when you’re ready. I guess we can have squab for dinner.”

  “Why are you traveling with pigeons?”

  “So I can send word back home from the road. What do you use them for?” He is able to pull another laugh out of her.

  “Are they homing pigeons, or carriers?” Rash asks

  “Both actually,” Bruce explains. “A carrier pigeon is just a homing pigeon with shit to do.”

  “How do they know where to go?” She lays her head on the headrest and looks at him while he drives.

  “They have natural magnets in their beaks that help them navigate like GPS. They just follow their noses like the bird on the cereal commercials.”

  “And, your home is New Castle, where you are the king?” She smiles.

  “My legend precedes me.” He sits up straighter, raising an eyebrow to his majestic glory.

  “I read your diary, remember?”