Or what if it’s a setup? What if she faked it and they’re waiting for me? But why would they want me? Unless…someone from Freeland helped spread my little run-in with Brandon and the other District guards to the higher-ups. Maybe the one-eyed man thought I was dead and after hearing the story he finds out he was wrong. What would be the best way to get me to him? Abby would.
But that’s just…crazy. Isn’t it?
I turn away from the barn now, the rifle over my shoulder, thumping me in the side. It aggravates an old injury in my ribs, one I never got properly checked out due to the collapse of civilization all those years ago.
No, forget it. Setup or not, I can un-brainwash her if I have to.
“Jack? Where are you going?” Lilly asks.
“To the Lincoln,” I say. “I have to get to Chicago.”
Lilly stands up now, too. “Not without me.”
“Lilly, just stay. I can do this by myself.”
“I know you can,” Lilly says, “but you shouldn’t.”
Suzanna gets up jerkily, holding her lower back. Despite the pain she’s obviously in, she offers a weak smile. “Jack, you really shouldn’t go. Not yet, at least. You are worn to the bone, that much is evident just by glancing at you.”
I shake my head. “It doesn’t matter. If what you say is true, I’ll fail anyway.”
“No, you may not. But you shouldn’t go alone. The place they call Black Towers is dangerous, or so I’ve heard.”
“Everywhere is dangerous now,” I say. I turn my back on them, stopping at the stable. There, Bilbo stands with sleepy eyes. He perks up at the sounds of my footsteps. I resist the urge to stroke his muzzle, to get attached.
He snorts air softly.
From the stable I go to the ruined U-Haul truck. Lilly and Suzanna have followed me. “I’m not taking it all,” I say. “Just enough to get by.”
“Not even all will be enough, Jack,” Suzanna says. “Please, don’t go. Stay here and live in peace for the rest of your life.”
I set the rifle I’m handling down on the hole-ridden metal floor. “Peace? No such thing as that anymore. They’ll always come—the zombies, the District, The Shadow, doesn’t matter.”
“But we’ll be prepared for them,” Suzanna says.
“That’s exactly what I thought. You want peace? You have to make it yourself. It’s what I intend to do,” I say.
Suzanna nods. She sees there’s no convincing me because there isn’t. I’m going to the Black Towers and I’m going to save Abby, then I’m going to rip The Shadow right out of the man who was once known as Adam.
I load the trunk of the Lincoln up with three rifles, each with a different attachment, and as many boxes of ammunition as can fit. I take a crate of grenades, too. For a moment, I think Suzanna is going to protest me taking the car, but she doesn’t. She doesn’t want to go anywhere. She wants to stay and relax, and as nice as that might be, I just can’t.
The spare tire is underneath the back bumper. The jack and the rest of the tools are in the trunk. I take them out. I’ve only changed a handful of tires in my lifetime, most of them being under the supervision of my brother Norm, who knows a hell of a lot more about that stuff than I do. Norm isn’t here, so I have to make due.
As I jack the car up and begin to remove the blown tire, Lilly is over my shoulder. She corrects me and because of these corrections, time is saved. Though I don’t show it on my face, I’m grateful for her.
We get the car back on all four shoes. A spare won’t get me too far, so it’s lucky I’m only going about fifty miles to Chicago. In all of this work, I didn’t notice Suzanna has disappeared until she comes back with two red cans of gasoline. They slosh with each step she takes.
“I may not be able to convince you, Jack, but I can help you as much as I can. Here, take this.” She hands me the containers. They are heavy, causing me to strain. It’s a good feeling. The smell of gasoline brings up many buried memories, makes me think of the old world. Anytime I was with Darlene—before the world went to hell, that is—I always got out and pumped her gas for her. This smell engulfed me as I leaned up against the pump and laughed like an idiot at the smashed faces Darlene would make, pressed against the glass of the driver’s side window. Damn it, I miss her so much.
Lilly takes the containers from my hand and puts them on the floor in the back seat.
“Thank you,” I say to Suzanna.
She smiles and offers me her hand. I take it. “No. Thank you, Jack. Know that you are in my prayers—all of our prayers.”
“Say goodbye to everyone for me,” I say.
“I will,” she says.
Lilly closes the door and comes around to us as Suzanna and I part. The two women hug each other, and for a slight moment I get this odd feeling of mother and daughter, like in some other timeline Lilly and Suzanna could’ve been related.
“Take care of that horse, too,” I say. I won’t call Bilbo by his name, that’ll only solidify my attachment.
Suzanna nods.
I turn my back on her and the house as I head to the driver’s seat of the Lincoln. Inside, I turn the key in the ignition and the engine roars to life. It’s a good feeling, that power thrumming beneath my feet.
But there’s another feeling I get now, too, as I adjust the rearview mirror to the proper spot. It’s the feeling that I haven’t seen the last of Suzanna and Bilbo or this farm at all.
I really hope that’s true. I really hope they can find peace and hold on to each other when I couldn’t.
Twenty-Five
By the time we see the Chicago skyline, the sun is starting to come up and exhaustion is taking its toll on me, which I can’t let happen. Lilly offered to drive once and I immediately took her up on that offer. While she drove, I was too worried to completely relax. I managed to doze in and out of consciousness; at one point, I even had dreams. I don’t remember them, but judging how I woke myself up by muttering, I imagine they weren’t very good.
We’re coming into the downtown area. I’m trying my best not to look around, unready for the pain of seeing my old home like this. As much as I didn’t love the big city and the bright lights, Chicago beat the heck out of Woodhaven, Ohio, and I’d give anything for my life to be back to the way it was.
“One positive,” Lilly says, snapping me out of my reminiscence of the past, “is that there’s hardly any traffic.”
I chuckle and nod ahead. “Yeah, only piled up cars.” Which is kind of like traffic. Dead traffic.
We haven’t seen many zombies yet, just the occasional stragglers, wasted away to practically nothing. They move sluggishly, without any purpose. As the Lincoln blares past them, I see their eyes light up and turn in our direction. Then we’re gone and so are they.
The pile-up I just nodded to is worse than I originally thought. My idea was to hop the curb and drive slow on the sidewalk, but even that’s looking impossible. I slow the car to a crawl and scan the streets for any way out.
“Shit, this isn’t good,” Lilly is saying. Out of the corner of my eye, I see her hands white-knuckle gripping her rifle.
“It’s okay. Just have to turn around and find another way in.”
“In where, Jack? We don’t even know where these Black Towers are.”
She’s right, but I have a hunch where the place is and I think Lilly does, too. The Willis Tower, also known as the Sears Tower. If ever there was a place to set up shop in Chicago, it would be that massive skyscraper. Hell, that whole area would be. If you cleared out the dead, you’d have quite the metropolis to play in, and I think the District is crazy and strong enough to do such a thing. But what does Abby have to do with it?
I put the car in reverse and turn around. The tires jump the curb, making me cringe at the idea of the spare dying on me in the process. It doesn’t. Now we’re traveling in the other direction of the pile-up.
Lilly lets out a sigh and eases her grip on the rifle.
“You didn’t have to come,” I s
ay.
She says, “Shut up.”
I do.
After a moment of slow driving, maneuvering through car wrecks and more pile-ups, Lilly speaks up again. Her voice is nervous. “So what the hell is our plan anyway?”
“To drive around until we see the Black Towers.”
“Yeah, you said that already. We’re pretty close, but I haven’t seen a single living soul,” she replies.
Of course, my plan isn’t what I tell her. My plan is to just avoid the zombies long enough until the District comes to us, then I’ll get taken to Abby and I’ll un-brainwash her and we’ll live happily ever after. And I have no doubt that they already know we’re here.
Simple. Easy.
Right?
A stretch of clear road opens in front of us. I take this opportunity to go a little faster. I don’t know what street we’re on, but we’re framed by tall buildings on both sides. Traffic lights have fallen into a few of them, making long gashes in their glass surfaces. On my left is a dead body—not a zombie, but a dead dead body. I see it out of the corner of my eyes despite not wanting to look. It’s like seeing a dog smashed in half on the road. You hate to see it, but you can’t take your eyes away from it, either.
This body isn’t fresh. The bones and what’s left of the flesh have long since rotted away. The bloodstains on the concrete have only faded slightly.
Lilly moans low in her throat, grips her rifle again.
So far, it’s the worse part of our trip to the Windy City, which is surprising in and of itself.
We come to a dead end on our right. It’s a parking deck that curls around and around, a place that probably cost fifteen or twenty bucks to leave your car there for a few hours once upon a time. The only way to go is left or back the way we’ve came. I take a look at the gas gauge. We’re floating somewhere between a quarter of a tank and empty. We have one extra can of gas in the backseat. Had to fill up about fifteen miles ago. This old Lincoln isn’t the best on gas mileage, but it was all we could get—and much better than the U-Haul would’ve been had it not been destroyed in the massive shootout on Bandit’s farm. We could fill up again, I know, but I don’t really want to get out of the car yet. There could be snipers posted on the high buildings or monsters lurking in the shadows.
Really, it’s the emptiness of this place that once held millions of people that gets to me…and the smell. The air is always tinged with rotting flesh. Knowing my luck, I’ll stop the car and not be able to get it started again, or I’ll get out and as soon as my boot hits the pavement, the dead will swarm. So I’ll take my chances with the quarter tank of gas, won’t fill up until I absolutely have to.
I slow down and begin to turn left.
Suddenly, Lilly lets out a low shriek, building into a full-on scream. I’m too shocked to do much of anything.
But I do manage to slam on the brakes.
Twenty-Six
A long, four lane street stretches out in front of us.
“Go back!” Lilly yells. “Go!”
I’m too frozen to do much of anything besides keep my foot pressed on the brake. On this road, streetlights line each side. The bulbs are long gone, I think, but that doesn’t matter. Fear is gripping me as hard as I’m gripping the steering wheel. Though I know I shouldn’t let it.
Bodies dangle from these streetlights. Groups of them, four or five to each light. They dangle low, reminding me of clusters of bananas you used to see at the grocery stores next to those shiny bowl-like scales. Chains are wrapped around the heads of those bodies that still have them, others dangle by their arms or their waists, slumped over.
Dead.
Their bloody faces and clothes stand out against the gray and black backdrop of the city buildings.
Now this wouldn’t be too bad, I guess, considering the things I’ve seen in my travels, but what gets me is the hundreds—no, thousands—of zombies below these dangling bodies. Almost every zombie has their hands up to the sky. They bat and swing at the low-hanging bait, apocalyptic fruit trees. The closest cluster of dead are about fifty feet from the Lincoln and when they hear the idling engine (which is entirely too loud in this quiet city) hundreds of golden eyes look in our direction.
A sudden jolt of pain in my arm. I’m dimly aware of it being Lilly’s hand. She’s graduated from holding her rifle to digging her fingers into my flesh. Somewhere in all of this confusion I think of getting a bruise. I hate being bruised.
“Go!” Lilly yells into my ear.
The zombies are slowly breaking away from the streetlights. Their arms come down almost one by one, like they’re doing the wave at a football game. Then the Domino Effect comes into play. The closer zombies have set off a chain reaction. As this group notices us, turns around, and starts shambling toward the Lincoln, so does the group behind them, and behind them, and so on.
A sudden burning on my face. The sound of skin connecting with skin. My eyes close and for this split second that they’re closed, I think everything will be gone when I open them, everything will be normal. Darlene will be back with Junior alive and smiling in her arms, the past two years will have never happened, the one-eyed man would’ve never attacked Haven and we’d all live happily ever after.
It’s a go-to fantasy of mine, I know. I can’t help it.
This isn’t the case, but as I do open my eyes, I realize I’m no longer frozen. Lilly has slapped the fear and shock right out of me.
I shift into reverse and my foot jumps from the brake to the gas. The screeching of the tires drown out the guttural groans of the horde—for the most part. As I start cutting the wheel to turn around and go back the way we came, the spare gives out on us with a muted pop.
The car rocks back and forth and for a moment I think we’re about to flip. Wouldn’t that just be my fucking luck?
It doesn’t happen, but I do lose control of the car. It spins out and the next thing I know the back of the car smashes into a nearby traffic light, taking out a blue USPS box in the process. Old paper flies into the air and comes down like snow.
Lilly and I fly forward. Her airbag comes out and softens her blow, but mine doesn’t and the steering wheel is there to greet me. Right in the face.
The world spins, goes black for a moment, and I’m willing myself to get it together, to resist the urge to pass out or die.
Glass breaks.
Snapshots of real life come to me. Speaking of snapshots, I think I’m somehow grabbing the locket that has come out from beneath my shirt. Then my eyes flutter and it’s like one of those old-time movie reels. Subliminal messages of the dead spliced into the film. Here’s a woman with half of her face eaten away, moving with a useless leg dragging behind her. Here’s a man with his neck broken, head dangling back and forth every time his feet touch the ground. Behind them are more. An old deteriorated fella with reading glasses hanging around his neck. A black man with a dingy gold necklace welded into his flesh, not dangling. Indiscernible faces of the dead. Zombies in ratty suits. Some in street clothes that have turned to rags. Greasy clumps of hair. Exposed innards. Guts hanging out of their stomachs like slimy snakes.
Then, the blackness again.
C’mon, Jack. You have to get up. You have to fight. You have to move! It’s Darlene’s voice, coming from somewhere deep in my subconscious.
I’m slipping.
JACK!
Slipping.
Dad. Wake up, Dad!
A new voice, the voice of my son.
“Junior,” I say with a croak. Blood floods my mouth and there’s a sharp pain in my forehead where the steering wheel broke my momentum—as well as my orbital bone.
Something touches my shoulder. It’s cold and wet. I turn my head in the direction of the touch, somehow.
There, glowing and radiant, is Junior. He has a wide smile on his face. He looks so much like Darlene. He’s got her eyes, her nose…
I smile back.
Groggily, I say, “Junior.”
He opens his mout
h, those grinning teeth parting. No words come out. Just a gurgle. In fact, this noise has no emotion in it whatsoever.
Then it hits me as hard as the car has hit the traffic pole behind us. That’s not my son, that’s a zombie.
My heart leaps in my chest. Eyes open wider than they ever have. I’m back in the now, back in the terrible now. Zombies surround the car. The windshield is cracked wider than before, a jagged lightning bolt running across its width next to the stars from Suzanna shooting at the fleeing Bandit back at the farm. Lilly’s moaning. The sound is muffled. There’s bright red on the powdery white of the airbag. The driver’s side window has shattered, glittering shards are stuck in my cloak and embedded in my arms. The pain comes full-force now. I have to try to keep it at bay as I move my hand toward Lilly’s rifle. Where mine went I have no idea, but I do know that there’s a zombie sticking his moldy arms into the car, reaching for my throat.
Not even the adrenaline can keep the fire in my head from subsiding.
I grab the rifle. It feels like it weighs a million pounds, the heaviest thing I’ve ever lifted. Somehow, I do lift it. Maybe it’s now a natural motion, something my body will never forget, like breathing or blinking. The gun comes up. I’m trying to aim it at its face, sloughed-off skin, broken teeth. Can’t reach it. Not strong enough.
I pull the trigger and I lose control. The gun blasts off a succession of shots and each one lifts it higher. Blood splatters the inside of the Lincoln as this eager zombie is ripped apart. Then the next shot reaches its head. It pops with an explosion of red and black. The tang of rot and coppery blood fills the cab and my mouth.
Beside me, Lilly stirs, coming back to consciousness. The rifle’s burst of shots is an alarm clock, the most effective one I’ve ever heard.
“We gotta go,” I say. “Can you walk?”
“Oh,” she moans, “I think so.”
The Dead Collection Box Set #2: Jack Zombie Books 5-8 Page 36