The dog eyes the beef jerky with hunger. Its nose twitches at the sharp scent of the snack, a nose which is devoid of all moisture.
“C’mon, Jack, just leave it,” Norm says.
The lighter is getting unbearably hot in my hand. I’m not sure how much fluid is left in it and we still have about three-quarters of a mile to go in this tunnel, I’m guessing. I let my finger off of the button. Darkness invades us as I push myself off the ground, then I brush away pebbles and grit pressed into my forearms and my shirt.
I know I’m not going to force the dog out from under the cars. It’ll have to come out on its own. So I tear off a piece of the jerky and leave in on the road just outside of the pick-up.
“All right,” I say, “let’s go.”
“Aw,” Abby says.
“Give me my beef jerky back,” Norm says.
I shove some of it in my mouth so it sounds like my mouth is full. “Too late, I ate it,” I say. And Norm punches me pretty hard in the arm. “Payback for being a dick back there,” I say through a mouthful of jerky.
“You owe me another one,” he says.
We keep going through the tunnel. I slow down at spaces of about twenty or thirty feet and tear off another piece, leaving it on the ground like a trail of bread crumbs in some fairy tale.
Nineteen
We come out of the other side all in one piece. All of our faces — including mine, I’m sure — look ghostly in the moonlight. Out of the tunnel the same concrete embankments surround us. There are few cars out here. That unsettles me. I feel like there should be more than just a few.
I reach out and take Darlene’s hand. She lets me and she even squeezes back. That makes me feel a little better.
Norm stands in front of us, his hands on his hips, looking out on the stretch of dark road. “No way we’re going to make it into the city before sun up. That’s gotta be ten miles.”
It’s probably not. But we’re all tired. I get it.
“You’re right,” Darlene says. This surprises me even more. Darlene agreeing with Norm is almost as unlikely as the dead rising and taking over the world. “We can rest up ahead, I think. I’m tired. It’ll be good to rest.”
I wonder what changed her mind. Was it the weight of all this? Was it what happened back in the tunnel? I don’t know, but I’m glad. We need a break.
Norm looks at her with narrowed eyes as if he’s waiting for a catch. Darlene never gives him one. She just smiles wanly and looks back.
“I’m sorry,” she says. She lets go of my hand and walks over to the divider in the middle of the road, leaning up against it, folding her arms and looking down at her dirty white Nikes. “I’m just not in my right mind right now. You know, with my dad and the fact that my mom and sister are probably zombies, roaming around the same city they used to walk when they were…normal.”
I walk over to her and put my arm around her shoulders. “It’s okay, Darlene,” I say.
“Yeah, don’t worry about it,” Abby says. “We needed the exercise anyway. Norm is getting fat.”
Norm gives her a death stare.
“Kidding,” Abby says, smiling.
“I get it,” Norm says. “But our safety comes first for now, Darlene, okay?”
“I know,” Darlene says. “I’m sorry. There’s a lake up ahead. About a mile away. We can rest there. Cool?”
Norm walks to us and messes Darlene’s hair up. She jerks away at his touch, but I see the faintest of smiles on her lips. “Yeah, that’s cool,” Norm says. “I could use a bath.”
“We all could,” I say.
Everyone laughs and we keep walking forward, toward the lake and the city and the unknown. But not before I sprinkle the road with the last of the beef jerky, hoping we’ll have a new friend pretty soon, but knowing I shouldn’t get my hopes up. Not with the way the world is now.
Twenty
We find a stretch of land that I think is probably someone’s yard, but the nearest house can’t even be seen in the moonlight, it’s that far away. The lake whose shores we are near is called Mountain Lake. Norm strips off his clothes, not caring that he’s naked as the day he was born, and runs into the water.
“Aw, come on, Norm,” I say. “No one wants to see that.”
He shoots up from the surface of the water, spitting it out of his mouth like a fountain. He’s very pale. “Don’t look then,” he says, then shakes his head like a wet dog.
“I don’t even care if he’s naked,” Abby says, not bothering to take off her own clothes. She heads into the lake. “I just need a bath.”
“We all do,” I say, “but be careful.” Who knows what is in that water. There could be zombies and zombies don’t drown. Although, I think we’d be able to see their eyes, like I saw in that lake near Central’s HQ. I shudder, the night wind cooling my sweaty skin. All of a sudden, I’m aware of how bad I smell. I probably do need to take a dip, cool off, let the tiredness and dust just wash away, but Darlene is sitting near the bank, her hand absently pulling grass out from the ground.
I walk over to her and sit down.
“Hey,” I say.
“Hey,” she answers back.
“Why don’t you try to get some sleep? We’ll keep watch.”
She sighs. “I can’t.”
In the water, Norm and Abby have gotten into a splash fight. Abby holds her stump above her head and shrieks. Norm says, “I win, I win!”
“Be quiet, dummies,” I say, then look back at Darlene. “There, I took care of it. Now you can sleep.”
She smiles at me. It’s a pitiful smile, one that says At least you’re trying, Jack. It doesn’t make me feel good. “Thanks,” she says and she rests her head on my shoulder. I rest my head on top of hers. It’s peaceful out here. There are no sounds besides the splashing water and the chirping of the crickets. The wind blows and with the breeze the leaves rustle. But there’s no people, no clamoring, no cars. Nothing besides Norm and Abby splish-splashing around and Darlene’s steady breathing.
“It’s just hard,” Darlene says. “I can’t sleep because I don’t want to have any nightmares. I’ve been having them all the time.”
I nod. Reach out and take her hand in mine and I squeeze. We’re living in the true nightmare. I mean, what can be worse then living in a world where you have to shoot your zombified mother or father, where you have to burn down the very town you grew up in, where you have to prevent crazy doctors from blowing up the world in an attempt at saving it? Nothing. But if Darlene is afraid to sleep, then I guess there must be something worse than all of this.
“It’s going to be okay,” I say.
“Is it?”
“Yes,” I answer. “So far it’s been a cakewalk since we left your house, considering the stuff we usually go through.”
Darlene smiles and this time it seems genuine. I lean over and kiss her on the corner of that smile, inhaling her sweet, sweaty scent, feeling her warmth.
“Thank you, Jack,” she says and puts her head back on my shoulder.
“We’re going to find your mom and sister. I’m excited, too.”
“You are?” she asks.
I nod and look onto the water. The clouds overhead have moved because the white moonlight glimmers off of the surface. Norm and Abby have taken their splashing fight out farther. Then I look back at Darlene. “Yeah, I am excited. Know why?”
She shakes her head, but she takes my hand again like she knows I’m about to say something sweet. And she’s not wrong, I totally am.
“I’m excited because your mom and Carmen can come to our wedding.”
She’s quiet after I say this. Really quiet. I don’t even know if she’s breathing. Then, to let me know she’s all right, she blinks and a slow tear rolls down her cheek. I smile now. This isn’t a tear of sadness. This is the same tear I got when she came home from work on our five year anniversary and I had baked her pizza in the shape of a heart. I’d also set up our small kitchen table in the living room while her favori
te movie Sixteen Candles played on our television and candlelight waved lazily all around us. It was quite romantic, if I do say so myself.
She smiles and the tear traces the curve of her lips. “You always make me feel better, Jack.” She throws her arms around me and hugs me tight. Hugs me as if I’ve come back from the grave. In a sense, I guess I have. How many times have I beat death? A lot. Way more than I should be able to. But again, I think there’s another force out there that has a hand in whether I live or die and that force is mostly on my side.
“I really don’t know what — ” Darlene begins to say, but rustling from behind us cuts her off.
Instantly, I’m hit with a spike of adrenaline. I’m up off of the bank, crouched with my pistol in my hand, scanning the darkness for any signs of glowing eyes.
Nothing.
My heart pumps. Darlene gets up, too. She’s not as quick, but she’s much quicker than she was six months ago…hell, much quicker than she was a few weeks ago.
“Jack?” Norm says from the water.
“Quiet!” I hiss, not bothering to turn around. The cloud covers the moon again. We are in almost total blackness. I can’t even see the shine on my gun.
Rustling again.
I stop breathing. Keep scanning.
Behind me, water sloshes as Norm and Abby pull themselves out of the lake. Not long after, a dripping Norm is by my side, his gun in his hand.
“What is it?” Darlene asks. Her voice is barely a whisper.
“I don’t know,” I say.
“Split up,” Norm says and I’m dimly aware that he’s still naked. He points left and looks at me, then points at himself and motions right.
Abby comes up behind us, her hair plastered to her face. I notice she has her shirt wrapped around her arm stump, probably to keep it as dry as possible.
There’s no other sounds now and I don’t like this at all. The lack of noise makes me think whatever’s out there is watching us, waiting for the perfect moment to strike. We are sitting ducks. This is what we get for trying to have some fun.
“I’d feel better if you put your clothes back on, Norm,” Abby says. He shakes his head in return as if to say we’re in mortal danger here, whether he's hanging brain or not doesn’t matter. But if I were Norm, I wouldn’t want to die naked.
I start moving left, following the direct line of where Norm’s finger once was. As I’m moving, I keep one eye on Darlene.
I push through the weeds, the low bushes. My shoes crunch the dead grass. I stop when I hear movement again. Norm is off to my right. Abby is near Darlene where I started moving from. The grass is higher over here and the grass is moving and it’s moving fast. Whatever comes for me is coming in hot. I raise my gun, and think to whatever entity is watching over us, Please let me get through this.
Twenty-One
What comes jumping out of the bushes makes me shudder, stumble backward, and fall over, the gun spilling out from my hand and getting lost in the tall grass.
But it doesn’t make me shudder in fear. I’m shuddering with laughter.
It’s the dog.
The cloud overhead moves and the moon seems so bright, like it might as well be daytime. And again, that thought of some higher power watching over us, guiding us, and aligning the stars of my destiny comes to mind.
Because the dog sitting on its haunches staring at me is more than a mere dog — and no, it’s not a zombie dog, either. It’s Cupcake reincarnated — a junkyard black lab I used to take care of years ago. It has the same white spot on its breast, those same glittering, caramel-colored eyes.
The dog stares at me with a questioning look. It tilts its head as I bray out laughter.
“Jack! Jack!” Darlene shouts.
More rustling. Abby and Darlene find me sitting there in the weeds and bramble, a big stupid grin on my face. I’m breathless because I’m laughing so hard. For a moment, I thought I was dead. I thought some mutant zombie straight from The Deadslayer was going to rip my throat out. Instead, it’s a blast from the past.
“I thought you were hurt,” Darlene says, putting her hands on her hips. “It’s not funny…stop laughing!”
Then Norm comes out of the darkness, his pale body glowing with the moonlight, and he’s still naked. He has the good grace to cover his junk with his hands, but when I see him I just start busting out in more laughter.
The three of them exchange a worried glance. Maybe they think I’ve cracked. Finally split my wig. Ol’ Jacky Jupiter. Lost it.
No, no, I’m fine. I swear it.
Once I gain control of myself, I push myself up. The dog doesn’t move at all. It just goes on staring at me with those beautiful brown eyes. I would say they are human eyes. Eyes I’ve never seen on a dog except all those years ago in that junkyard not far from the house I grew up in. They’re the type of eyes that understand, that read you, that see through all the bullshit. Pure. Unafraid.
But the dog is half-starved and covered in reddish welts and sores. I can see its ribs poking through its skin.
“Well, now that we know you haven’t completely lost your mind, Jack,” Norm says, “it’s good to see you can still make friends.”
I walk over to the dog, searching my back pocket for the rest of Norm’s beef jerky. There’s none left. Nothing except for the wrapper. The dog hears the crinkling of the package. Its floppy ears perk up. The thick tail — the only part of the dog’s body that hasn’t suffered from the lesions — wags fervently, brushing the grass back and forth.
“Come here,” I say.
The dog eyes me wearily, almost as if I’m an enemy. But the hunger and the curiosity wins out — much like a zombie in its own way — and the dog walks closer to me with its tail between its legs.
I hold the jerky wrapper close to it so it knows I’m the one, I’m its friend. The dog’s nose twitches.
“You asshole,” Norm says. “You were holding out on me.”
The dog looks over to Norm, fear in its eyes. Norm’s voice is harsh, almost grating.
“Quiet!” I hiss, then hold the wrapper out farther.
Sniff, sniff, sniff.
“That’s it,” I say. The dog stops short, sits on its haunches, and then does something that almost floors me right then and there. It’s nothing special, really; it’s just that junkyard Lab used to do the same thing when it came to treats. The dog sticks one arm up in the air and brings it down about breast-level as if it wants to shake my hand upon meeting me for the first time.
“Aw,” Darlene and Abby say simultaneously.
I’d say aw, too, if I wasn’t so focused on not scaring the dog.
I take the dog’s paw.
It’s rough and caked with mud and God knows what else, the nails are long and jagged, chipped in places, the fur matted, but as the paw fills my palm, something else happens. I hear it, but I feel it more than anything. It’s a click. Two gears grinding together to keep the machine of life going; the last piece of a puzzle snapped into place — destiny.
If I was lucky enough to pick out a dog of my own when I was younger, I imagine this is the same feeling I’d get once my eyes met the dog’s I was supposed to take home.
It’s one of those things. One of those things you just know is right.
Then gently, not like a starving dog at all, it takes the beef jerky wrapper out of my other hand, leaving only the faintest trace of drool on my flesh that shines in the moonlight. It licks whatever’s left in the tubular packaging.
Another Aw from the girls.
A big grin on my face. The slow, but oh-so-fast beat of my heart, signifying love.
The dog continues licking, sniffing. I lean forward and start scratching it behind the ear. Its tail wags.
“Jesus, you really know how to pick friends,” Norm says.
I don’t reply. I keep petting the dog with a smile on my face.
Norm says, “You owe me beef jerky, Jack. I’m not going to forget, either. Don’t think I will.” And he walks off ba
ck to where his dry clothes are on the lake’s bank.
The dog lays down on its side and lets me rub its belly. A quick glance shows this dog is, in fact, a male — not neutered.
Darlene and Abby kneel down next to me. They scratch the dog’s belly, too.
“He’s such a cute boy,” Darlene says. “Aren’t you? Aren’t you?”
She does it in this sickening sweet voice, but I look at her and say, “Yeah, I am.”
She rolls her eyes.
“Could use a bath, though,” Abby says. “Let’s throw him in the lake.”
The dog tilts his head up at us. It’s almost like he understood what Abby said.
“She’s just kidding, boy,” I say.
The dog lays his head back down and let’s us continue scratching him.
“What are you gonna name him?” Darlene asks me.
I look to the dog, right at his deep brown eyes. For a second, I’m transported back in time, back to that span of summer where I had a friend, a true friend, and I smile so wide, I think the corners of my mouth are going to join and the top of my head is going to fall off.
“Easy,” I say.
The girls look at me like I’m crazy.
Abby mouths Easy?
I chuckle. “Cupcake.”
The dog barks happily, starts kicking his hind leg. We must be hitting a ticklish spot.
“Cupcake?” Abby says. “You see the beanbag on this pup, right, Jack? You know it’s a he.”
“I know,” I say. “But I like that name. I’ve always liked that name.”
“Well, you found him,” Darlene says, getting up. “I think you can name him whatever you want, even if it’s a girly name.”
I look down at the dog. “You like the name, don’t you, boy?”
The dog barks in answer. It’s a happy bark…if that makes sense. “Then Cupcake it is.” He pushes himself up off the ground, tail wagging, tilts his head back at the moon and howls.
But I don’t think its directed at the moon; I think it’s directed at whatever’s up there watching over us.
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