[RL: But the way I initially wrote it was to have… Oh, that’s right. Initially you the kids playing, and then I put them next to the stream when Sam’s running for his life. And we changed that to be he jumps out of the car to save them. Right?]
[TK: Right, we had them racing the boats.]
[RL: Right.]
[TK: But we were always going to have it be “Is he gonna get there? Is he gonna get there?” and then “Oh, man.” But I think it was you’re idea to have his wife shoot the guy.]
[RL: Fuck it, I’ll take it.]
Four
“I’m fine,” Mercedes told her cell mate, Jessie, as she stirred the massive pot of soup.
Jessie sighed. “You shouldn’t even be drinking. You know that, right?”
“Come off it. I had one shot.”
“Doesn’t matter how much,” Jessie scolded. “No alcohol, smokes or drugs.”
“What are you, my doctor now? Besides, we’re in fucking prison, where would I find drugs?”
Jessie gave her an incredulous look.
“True that,” Mercedes said, and went back to stirring. “But it doesn’t matter anyway, because we all know they won’t let me keep it.”
“What does that matter? You want the best for it, right? So, let’s say the young couple in the Beemer want a little baby or whatever, you think they want one with fetal alcohol syndrome?”
“The young couple in the Beemer won’t want my baby anyway.”
[RL: I really like how these two are so oblivious to what’s happening everywhere else. They’re still talking about adoptions and BMWs and shit, without a single fucking clue that none of that matters anymore. I think it plays well, but the hardest part of plotting things like this is to remember who knows what, when.]
“Young couples with Beemers want babies, they don’t care where they come from,” Jessie told her. "I did a portrait once for this guy. Nice, young guy. Worked for his dad, big in construction. Pretty little wife. She was… about my age, but this was years ago. I was in high school then. Anyway, he wanted this portrait of his dad to give him for Father’s Day. Paid me ten bucks an hour to paint this guy’s old man looking like someone important…”
“Is this going somewhere?”
“The point,” Jessie snapped, “was that she couldn’t have kids. Something happened when she was young. Sick or some shit. Anyway, this young guy just loved the shit out of her anyway. So they were going to adopt.”
“And? He just told you all this while you painted? Like at the barber’s?”
“If you interrupt the story again,” Jessie told Mercedes, “I’ll stab you.”
Mercedes laughed. “Go on,” she said.
“Where was I? Oh, yeah. So, anyway, they spent like three years and a small fortune. I heard it was like eighty thousand dollars to get their kid. It was crazy. Then I heard – this was after I was in here, my mom sent me a letter – that the biological mother came and sued to get the kid back. A great big fucking mess. The best thing a young couple in a Beemer can hope for is a kid whose momma has life.”
“How flattering,” Mercedes said. Sighed. “Fine, you can have the damn bottle.”
“Thanks,” Jessie chirped. Skipped over to Mercedes and snatched up the bottle of scotch from under the counter. Skipped back over to her work station and deposited it inside the cart, well hidden. “I know just what to do with it.”
Five
Warden Bowers leaned over the desk and keyed the coms unit. “Watkins, report,” he said into it.
Waited.
“Watkins, damn you, report. You should have been back hours ago.”
Silence. Then Chris’ voice came over the speakers: “About two minutes out, Warden. Four trucks. Have you got any buses coming in?”
“Buses?” Bowers asked. “No, we haven’t had any buses coming in. Why? Is there a tour group in the area? Field trip I need to know about?”
“No…”
“Like a ‘scared straight’ kinda thing?” Bowers interrupted him.
“No, damn it, we sent two buses back with survivors, but we lost track of them.”
“You lost track of two buses? Did you check the last place you left them?”
“Not really an option, sir.”
“Jesus Christ, Chris, what the hell is going on? And where the fuck is Watkins? I’ve been calling him all morning.”
Silence.
“Chris?”
“Watkins isn’t with us anymore.”
Warden sighed. “How many more we lose?” he asked.
“Couple. Hard to tell right now. We’ll have to do a head count when we get in.”
“Anyone bit?”
“Negative.”
“Alright,” Bowers said, nodding. “First thing I want is to talk to you and the other boys that were out there. I want a clear picture of what we’re dealing with. Understood?”
“Copy.”
“And Chris.”
“Sir.”
“Good job. You’re almost home. I’ll see you soon.”
“Yes, sir.”
Bowers dropped the microphone and left the coms room. Heading for his office. He would need to open the gate. And probably close it up fast.
Six
Bryce steered the bus along the highway as it snaked around the town. Staying in the center lane and keeping it at the speed limit. He didn’t know why. There were no other cars on the road.
[RL: The last thing you need when you’re in a hurry is a speeding ticket, you know…]
He looked down at the town as it rolled by. He kept his right hand on the wheel, his left hanging down. Glanced back at the road, then back at the town. It was past noon now. The sun shining down gray with the winter. It made everything seem faded. Cold. Lifeless.
Bryce shuddered and turned away. Unsure of why the sight made him so uneasy.
Then, in a breaking wave of emotion, the totality of what he had experienced in the past two days hit him. The fear. The shame. The blood. The smell of gunpowder. The flashing bursts of muzzles. The fear. The carnage. The smoking bodies. The hope. The pain. The loss. The fear.
The fear. The terror.
[TK: The human body is an amazing piece of machinery, during a crisis it can shut everything else out and push itself, but eventually it catches up with you.]
He ran his left hand through his hair and then used it to wipe at his eyes.
When it had been happening he hadn’t much considered it. He had done what had to be done. He had clung to the thing that was important: survival.
But now, driving the bus as it circled the town to make its way to Brennick, all the images came slashing back at his mind, the faces, the names, the brutal realities: Will. Sam. Phil. Women. Children. Jesus, he thought, they were shooting fucking nuns. The sheriff! Everyone was dead. Everyone.
He felt a tremor and thought he was losing control. Thought he might be breaking down right there. His right arm was rocking up and down. He took it away and replaced it with the left. Now that one was doing it. Was he losing his mind altogether? Was any of this real?
He looked in the rearview mirror and realized the whole bus was vibrating in a slow, rhythmic fashion. Was this all part of his psychosis?
No. He had felt something like this before. He applied the brakes and took the bus down to a lesser speed. The vibration turned to a thumping. He stopped the bus. Cranked open the busted out folding door. Hopped down the steps and looked at the passenger side front tire.
It was shredded.
[RL: I take that back, the last thing you want when you’re in a hurry and the world is full of zombies is a flat tire on the bus you’re driving. That shit will just flat out fuck your entire day. Ha! Get it? Flat?]
[TK: Ladies and gentlemen, my brother Ryan’s sense of humor.]
[RL: It’s called a pun. Real quick: I remember when I was a junior high douche saying all the time: “That was a witty pun.” I also wore the same three pairs of baggy pants every day (not all three, one
for each day) and had spiked hair that was so gelled it hurt to touch it. I would have to shower before bed or I couldn’t put my head on my pillow. My only defense is it was the late nineties.]
[TK: I’ll keep my eighties stories to myself, with my parachute pants and Miami Vice blazer.]
Seven
“You look like shit,” Pope told Chris when they met at the interior gate.
“You look like someone’s ass,” Chris told him. Then sighed, and said, “I meant that as a compliment.”
[RL: Ever had one of those days when people take everything you say the wrong way?]
Pope glared at him. “Warden wants to see you,” he said. “In fact, Warden wants to see all of you. And I don’t blame him. You were supposed to be back hours ago. And you went and lost two buses full of survivors. And your own damned CO. And…”
[TK: Love the fact that he’s getting a lecture after all the shit he’s been through, all the while trying to keep his sanity. Not for much longer.]
Chris held up a palm and shook his head. He didn’t have any energy to waste with Pope.
“I got it,” Chris told him. “Tell the Warden we’re going to get cleaned up first. We spent the last day and a night running from cannibal fucking nightwalkers and slaughtering thousands of them to stay alive. Saw a man get shot by his own wife. Found out one of our best was a wife beater and a murderer. Got run around all over hell trying to get some of Warden’s special shit. And then saw a friend of mine blow himself up. And to top it off I haven’t had a cigarette in hours.”
Chris cocked his head to one side, eyeing Pope. “How was your day?” he asked.
Pope cleared his throat. “I’ll let the Warden know you requested a half hour to get your men in proper shape.”
“You fucking do that, cocksucker,” Chris said, and pushed past him.
A woman came out of Chris’ truck and said, “What does he mean: ‘Saw a man get shot by his own wife’?”
[TK: Can’t think of a more deserving person]
Eight
Marshall said, “Shit” when he got a look at the tire. Peaking at five foot eleven, he didn’t look like much with his jacket on. Bryce knew that in a short sleeve uniform the guy was a monster. Brennick had held a boxing tournament between the guards one year. Marshall had gone head to head with Brooks – all six foot five and three hundred pounds of him – for three rounds before the warden stopped the fight.
Brooks had lost.
Marshall had his bus parked behind Bryce’s, the engine still running.
“Well,” Bryce said, “what do we do now?”
“Call triple-A.”
[RL: Badump Ch.]
“Very funny,” Bryce told him. “But seriously.”
Marshall’s green eyes locked on the tire, then flicked back at his bus, then back at the tire. He rubbed his tanned face. “We can’t fit them all in my bus,” he said.
“No shit. That’s why we brought two.”
“And we’re, what, twenty miles out?”
“About that,” Bryce agreed.
“So, the question is: do we try to drive it like that, or fix it here?”
“We fix it here, we have to get all the survivors out to stand around and wait.”
[TK: Don’t want to damage the suspension, resale and all.]
“True,” Marshall said, nodded. “But if the rim goes a mile from the prison, we’re surrounded by the woods. Then we have to walk thirty people along the highway with creepers flanking us all around.”
“Fuck,” Bryce said, and kicked the frozen gravel along the road.
Marshall nodded. “The term I would have used,” he said, “is ‘fuck-ed.’”
Bryce stared at the tire, thinking. After a moment, he broke his glare, stomped up the steps and turned to the thirty-odd survivors huddling together in the seats.
“We’ve got a flat,” he told them. “I’ll need to jack up the bus to fix it. That means you all have to get out. Line up along the concrete barrier and stay in the light. Do not fucking move or speak when you’re out there. If there’s any men who can help, we’re not asking: you will help us fix the tire. Once it’s done, we’ll be back on the road.”
He looked from one set of frightened eyes to the next. “Move it!” he told them.
[TK: 19 years in the military, it still amazes me the power of yelling at people.]
Nine
“So,” Tall Bill Mahone said to Erin Gibbs, “what’s his play?”
“Who’s?” Erin asked, lying in his bunk, fingers laced behind his head, gray skin, orange jump suit tied at the waist, white undershirt. “The Warden’s?”
“Yeah.” Bill nodded. “So he wants to let us out of lock-down because he can’t watch us and keep those fucking zombies out at the same time.”
“Correct.”
“But how does letting us out help him? I would think it would make it harder.”
“The idea is that the Shot Callers will keep their soldiers in line. If someone does something stupid, everyone goes back into lock down and whoever did the stupid thing gets put out.”
“Put out?” Bill asked.
“Like outside.” Erin shrugged on his bunk. “To get eaten.”
“Jesus fucking Christ, that’s brutal.”
Erin nodded. “Sounds like the Warden, right?”
“But how does that help him?”
“He needs workers to maintain the prison so that his guards can concentrate on shooting. I would imagine he probably needs more shooters, but can’t just come out and say that. So this is basically a trial balloon. See if we can all play nice. If we make it okay through this, maybe he starts giving the better behaved boys guns.”
“Like setting up his own little kingdom.”
Erin sighed. “I’m not defending the man,” he said, “but he’s just trying to survive this. He’s planning for long term, worst case scenario. If a week from the now the National Guard rolls in and knocks on the gate, I figure he’ll be happier than shit. But that doesn’t mean he can’t plan for them never coming around. Anyone who’s been outside can see the reason for him to be skeptical.”
“’Warden Bowers’ press secretary said in a statement.’”
“Hey, fuck you, Bill,” Erin snapped, and sat up. “What would you have done? Said, ‘To hell with you, I like being locked in my cell twenty-four hours a day with another man’?”
Bill thought about it. “Good point,” he said.
“Besides. Think about what he’s offering: the ability to move freely around the prison. That could be useful, don’t you think?”
Bill didn’t think this time, he just nodded.
“Very useful,” Erin said.
Ten
Chris let the water roll over him, washing away the clotted blood and dirt and gun powder. It washed over the oozing, gangrenous mass that had once been just a small bite mark. The flesh now dead, rotten, black lines tracking out from it, running up Chris’ veins like a tribal tattoo. They had passed his elbow now, reaching up along his bicep towards his shoulder.
He turned the water off and sighed. His mind quiet now. No voices. No rage. No hunger.
“Chris,” Brooks called from the locker room. “Pope says Warden wants us there in five. You alright?”
“Fine,” Chris called back. “Go on ahead of me. I’ll meet you boys at the Warden’s office.”
“Roger,” Brooks said.
Chris heard the locker room door open and close. He peeked around the shower curtain. The locker room was empty. Came out and took a towel and dried off. Then, he went to the sink and applied a new bandage to his arm – it wouldn’t do any good for the wound, but would sop up the puss and help conceal it under his shirt.
He pulled on fresh boxers and uniform pants. Socks and his work boots, taking extra time to tie the laces. Pulled on a clean undershirt. Put on deodorant. Then his uniform shirt. Buttoning it up and tucking it in.
Finally, he crossed back to the sink and looked in the mirror. His skin
was pasty pale. Eyes sunken, bruised and bloodshot. Two day’s stubble making him look shabby even in his pressed clothes.
“You look like shit,” he said to the mirror.
“Fuck you,” his reflection spat back at him. “I was born this way. What’s your excuse?”
[RL: This scene was important because it establishes the voice in Chris’ head as an autonomous being. Separate from Chris. So when his reflection says he was born this way, what he means is that before Chris began his decent into the madness of zombification, he didn’t exist. So, in a very real way, he was born that way (And, No, Lady Gaga, you were not).]
Eleven
Mercedes set the last tray on the cart and sighed. She loved getting out of her cell, but it had been a long time since she had done an eight hour shift at anything that could have been considered a real job. It was wearing her out. It was also making her feel… maybe not appreciated or free, but less of a prisoner.
Fuck it, she decided, she’d take it.
“You ready?” she asked Jessie.
Jessie nodded.
The double doors swept in and brought a guard with them, then settled back in their usual place at rest, the guard now standing in the kitchen.
“Warden wants to see you,” he said.
Mercedes looked at Jessie, who looked back at Mercedes.
“Me?” Mercedes asked.
“Yeah.” The guard nodded. “Warden wants to see you,” he said again.
Jessie stared into Mercedes’ eyes. Fear etched into the soft lines of her face.
“I’ll see you in a bit,” Mercedes told her, and punched her in the shoulder. “No worries.”
Jessie nodded and looked at the floor, pushing the cart towards the double door. The guard watched her as she passed around him and went through. Then said, “What’s the matter with your friend?”
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