Reckoning.2015.010.21

by Michaelbrent Collings

  Ken stood in the back of the truck, his head barely visible above the level of the truck bed's shell. Christopher noticed that he was gripping the side with a hand that had grown some kind of claws that dug deep into the metal itself. The lip of the metal was actually curled slightly in his grip.

  What happened to him?

  Is this even Ken anymore?

  Ken was rigid, looking behind the truck. Staring into the darkness and the drifting curls of smoke that reached down from the sky from time to time, trying to find them in the black of night.

  The growl came again. Louder. And Christopher realized that the sound wasn't just in his ears, it was in his mind. Just like when Maggie had screamed in the bunker, the deep, rasping sound rattled around his skull, blasting holes in his brain.

  How is this happening?

  But he knew. Knew that, just as the queens were growing up and growing stronger, so must the king. The thing that had taken little Derek was calling for….

  What?

  For us.

  For the queens.

  For the end.

  He threw the keys into the truck. It struck him that Aaron and the others had waited ready. As though they knew he would find the keys. That he would find what they needed.

  It warmed him.

  It scared him.

  What happens when I let them down?

  And he would. He knew that. It was what he did. What he had done in his parents' eyes, what he had done in letting Heather transform into the junkie she became.

  What he did when he left Carina to die in a blasted hospital that he should have checked, should have looked at better and harder.

  I should have found her.

  I'll let them down.

  Then Theresa was clinging to the side of the dump truck, pulling herself to the top. He pushed her hips, helping her and expecting to hear her berating him for daring to touch her.

  She didn't.

  She pulled herself over the top. He followed, clambering up, over, and into the truck bed.

  Ken was still looking behind them.

  "Go," he rasped.

  The voice came from Ken, but it wasn't Ken's. It was deeper, more animal.

  And, like the growl, it sounded in his mind.

  The truck thrummed beneath them. A rumble that rattled his feet and shook its way up his spine as the engine of a truck built solely to move heavy loads as efficiently as possible pushed the huge tires forward.

  The smoke swirled above them.

  It all made Christopher feel alone. Never mind being the last man on earth, he suddenly felt that this was the only "earth" left. Like there was nothing beyond the dunes that surrounded them, nothing above the smoke that cloaked the sky.

  The truck rounded the first dune.

  Found a road that led into the night.

  101

  The growl followed them. Christopher wondered if they were going to make it.

  He looked at Ken. His friend –

  (friend? once-friend? thing?)

  – still stood as straight and unbending as a girder.

  Then he moved. So fast that Christopher almost couldn't see it. Just a glimpse of green iridescence, wings flashing in the backsplash of the truck's headlights. A blur that streaked upward.

  And gone.

  Christopher looked at Theresa. She had seen it, too; was staring at the place Ken had been standing before exploding into sudden flight. Her mouth hung slightly open, as though she still couldn't believe this was happening.

  Christopher knew how she felt.

  The growl continued in his mind. In everyone's mind. Not just a threat, but a call.

  He had spoken to the others. Had talked about the feeling that pulsed through them whenever a large group of the things came close –

  (give up. give in.)

  – but this was different. That had been an urge, a sensation that his mind attributed words to so it could make sense of what was calling it. So that it wouldn't go mad in the gray void of the things.

  This, though…. It wasn't a feeling. It wasn't a rage-filled something that filled his mind.

  It was….

  Thought.

  That was it. It was coherent. Comprehending.

  (the king calls. the king will not be denied.)

  He looked at Theresa. She was looking at him, and now her mouth was open all the way.

  "Did you –" she began.

  "Yeah," he said. "I heard it."

  "The king…."

  "Yeah."

  (the king will not be –)

  The sound broke off in his mind. Stopped so suddenly it was almost violent. One moment there was a presence, the next moment it left. Like Ken's flight through the smoke, leaving turbulence behind, then the swirls settling and no trace at all that anything had ever been there.

  The thoughts did not come back.

  Something thudded. The sound of something striking the metal of the truck. At first Christopher thought Aaron must have crashed into something, but the truck kept its lumbering course forward, unstopping and seemingly unstoppable.

  He looked around. The thud hadn't come from the front of the truck, but from the back.

  Ken had landed in the bed behind them. His wings folding behind him, hidden in his back as they had been before. Slight bulges showed over the level of his shoulders, but that was all that remained.

  He was covered in gore. And Christopher knew why the sound had cut off in his mind.

  "You okay, Ken?" He stepped toward his friend.

  Ken growled. The blades shot out of his hand, and he thrust it in Christopher's direction. Christopher jerked to a halt.

  The points hung inches from his eyes.

  Ken didn't seem to recognize him. There was no friendship in his face, no knowledge in his eyes. Just a rabid rage that changed him from something once human into something all beast.

  Christopher thought he was going to die.

  Then Ken blinked. The feral light went out of his eyes.

  He slumped.

  "I… sorry," he said. His voice was still rough – halting and tense, like he hadn't spoken for days and needed a big glass of water to get rid of the frog in his throat.

  "No problem, pal," said Christopher. He gulped, having trouble focusing on anything beyond the points that hung in front of him. "But would you mind…."

  Ken shook his head. "Sorry," he muttered again. The blades retracted and he lowered his hand. Then he moved as far to the back of the truck bed as he could. "You should move to the front," he said.

  Christopher did what he was told. Quickly and without question. He paused only long enough to take Theresa's hand and pull her to the front of the bed with him.

  She resisted for a moment. He couldn't decipher the expression on her face, but thought it might be care. Concern. It almost seemed alien to her.

  Theresa had lost her brother. He wondered if she had shut down part of herself when that happened. Not destroyed it, not cut it off. More like it was part of the house of her mind, a wing she had cordoned off and in which she had turned off all the lights because it would no longer be needed – could no longer be used.

  What's happening to us?

  What if we forget what we are?

  The idea frightened him. The idea that the zombies might not be all that threatened; it could be the fact that the survivors – all of them, wherever in the world they were – were shutting off all that made them human.

  What was the fight about, if not to save humanity?

  What was the fight for, if humans had shut down that humanity of their own accord?

  Ken hunched deep in the shadows that pooled at the back of the truck bed. Only a vague outline and the occasional animal glint of his eyes could be seen.

  Christopher didn't let go of Theresa's hand.

  She didn't let go of his, either.

  102

  Dawn didn't arrive. It came as a sleep, or a slow-moving disease. It bled through the smoke, pushed veins of re
d and orange into the sky.

  They bumped along a back road, finally found pavement, then thrummed through that part of the country until Aaron turned them onto a main road. Christopher didn't know what road it was, or even where they were. He thought that they were still in Oregon, though close to the border with Idaho. But he couldn't be sure. He knew New York City, Los Angeles, Chicago. He was familiar with a dozen European cities.

  He barely knew his own backyard. And even in this place, at a time where all those cities were barely images seen through a dark mirror, he was for some reason ashamed of that fact.

  The truck chewed up the asphalt, and Aaron turned off the lights as the sun finally pushed through the thinning smoke. They were leaving the fire behind.

  And more than one friend.

  Christopher thought of Buck. He looked at Ken, still hunched in the corner of the truck, and wondered why it was that some people lived while others died. There was no rhyme, no fairness.

  It just was.

  Theresa squeezed his hand. "Hey." He looked at her. "Don't mope. You're alive."

  The words came in her raspy voice, and carried an edge that implied she would kick his ass if he didn't listen. But her lips hinted at a smile.

  He blew out a rush of air. Inhaled. He could still smell the smoke from the fires they were outpacing a bit with every passing mile. But there was the promise of clean air beneath it. The promise of a future where flame did not rule.

  "Thanks," he said. She squeezed his hand again. "I'm growing on you, huh?"

  She rolled her eyes. "Like a fungus. Or genital warts."

  "See? You do care."

  She let go of his hand. Still with that hint of a smile. He felt her hand letting go as a surprising loss. A bit more alone, a bit more afraid. He wanted to hold her hand again, but knew it wouldn't go over well. Instead he moved toward Ken.

  "Should you –" began Theresa.

  Christopher held up a hand. "It's okay." He turned to Ken. "Isn't it, Ken?"

  He suddenly remembered saying something like this before. Walking along a street in Vegas, and a dog came rushing out of an alley. Snarling and slavering, its ribs stark against its skin. There was no question that it was a stray, and it was equally certain that it was very, very hungry.

  Christopher had spoken like this to that dog. "It's okay. Easy, boy. It's okay, isn't it?"

  The dog bit him on the leg. Left him with a scar he still had to this day. Luckily it wasn't interested in making a meal of him, and it ran off after that first bite.

  But the bite had hurt. Christopher hoped his words to Ken would end differently. Because Ken, he suspected, would never attack and run. He would just attack and keep coming until the fight was over. Until either he or his foe was dead.

  Ken looked at him. Recognition in his eyes, and that made Christopher relax a little.

  "You okay?" he asked again.

  Ken looked like he was thinking about it. Then nodded. "Okay," he answered. His voice still sounded scratchy; unused. Something in it had changed, had made it less the voice of a devoted family man and more a low growl.

  Like the growl of the things. Of them.

  "What happened to you?" asked Christopher. Wondering if he should wait until the others could hear this, too. He looked at Theresa. She nodded, encouraging him to keep going. "We thought you died."

  Ken looked at his hands. Curled them into fists, and examined the too-large bones of his knuckles, his forearms. "I think…. I think I did."

  103

  "What do you mean, you died?" Christopher stared at his friend –

  (is it your friend?)

  – and tried to understand. Tried to make sense of madness.

  Failed.

  "You're talking crazy," said Theresa.

  "No," said Ken. "Not crazy. It just is."

  "Not sure how you can think that, bud." Christopher grinned, a smile wider than he felt like giving. "You're here, Ken. Still with us."

  Ken looked at Christopher, then at Theresa. "Your friend did this to me," he said.

  Christopher knew what he was talking about: Theresa's companion, Elijah, had been the one who shot Ken in the chest. And then Ken bled out and – they thought – died.

  "Yes," said Theresa. There was no fear in her voice, nor any trace of apology. Partly because she hadn't pulled the trigger and partly because, Christopher knew, she was still convinced it had been the right call at the time.

  "No use getting mad," said Christopher. Worried what Ken might do if he got it in his head that Theresa was still a threat. "And she's changed her mind about us. About you. And you're here. You're safe."

  "Safe?" Ken chuckled. "No one is safe." He looked back at his hands. "You said I was alive. But first I had to die. And now…."

  "You're here," said Christopher. "You're with us."

  "I am with you, yes. But not Ken." He looked up. "Ken died, and I lived. But Ken… Ken is still dead, I think."

  Christopher realized something. Something that had hung in the peripheries of his mind for some time now, but that had finally pushed its way to the fore.

  Ken had been, above all, kind. Tough, yes, but he hadn't become their leader because of that – they were all tough.

  (All but me.)

  No, the thing that had made them their leader was that he cared about them all. That he always said the right thing.

  But now… now he said next to nothing.

  And in that moment, he knew that Ken was right. Maybe not in the particulars, but something about Ken was gone. Maybe the most important things.

  "How can you be dead?" said Theresa.

  "I felt…." Ken put a bony hand to the bare chest that looked subtly wrong – too thick in the center, too rounded. "I felt the bullets go in. I felt myself leave." He fell silent.

  "Then what?" asked Christopher. His voice was so low he barely heard it above the rattle-hum of the truck.

  "Then… nothing." Ken's eyes were faraway. "Then everything. I felt the earth, the insects, the grass and weeds. I felt it, was it."

  "So you didn't die," said Christopher. "Just blacked out from blood loss, then –"

  "What?" Ken said. "People do not black out from blood loss and then just improve."

  "You did. You did."

  "No. I did not. I am back, but I am not Ken. I wear him, like a coat. A hand in a glove."

  Christopher shook his head. "That's impossible."

  "Nothing impossible is impossible. Not anymore." Ken looked into the sky. "The world burns. New things rise from ash."

  "If you're not Ken," said Theresa, "then what are you?"

  "I am different. Less. More. I think that the zombies come from the dead, but all they are is shells. I came back and my shell was corrupt. My mind only took in part of what was offered. What was forced." He held out a hand. Bone became blade. "I am me. I am them. So because I am both, I am almost none." He turned his hand, looking at what it had become. "I hear them." He looked at Christopher. "They call me. And I think… I think that sooner or later I will answer. Sooner or later I will join them."

  104

  They drove silently. The sky lightened further. The smoke fell away in individual threads, strands pulled from a blanket one after another until it was no longer threadbare but simply gone.

  The truck swerved from time to time, moving around cars that had stopped on the sides of the highway – sometimes right in the middle.

  Christopher looked at each as they passed. Some had bloodstains on the seats, the steering wheels, the windshields.

  All were empty.

  He sat down. The metal of the truck bed was cold. It bled through the ripped and stained remains of his clothing. He shivered.

  Theresa sat beside him. Not touching, but close enough to be in easy reach. He didn't think that was accidental, given that she had the entire truck bed to choose from. He wanted to hold her hand again. Not because of the interest bordering on infatuation that he had felt from the first time he saw her –
>
  (just like I felt for Heather)

  – but simply because a touch would have reminded him there were others with him. It would have reminded him of what he was fighting for. Not just to hold on, not just to endure. To live.

  But he didn't touch her. Every time he felt ready to, he saw Ken, hunched in the back of the truck in a pool of shadow that seemed to emanate from him.

  Ken looked at nothing. He crouched – not sat, crouched, looking ever at the ready – in the back of the truck, staring into space. Every once in a while his body would shift, would ripple. Not with the motion of the truck, but in subtle waves like something below the skin was trying to get out.

  The truck slowed. Christopher felt it before he recognized it consciously. As soon as he did, the truck gave a shudder and there was a squeal of heavy duty brakes. He kept moving, that last few inches that everyone experiences when driving in a car that has suddenly stopped. Forward motion even when the world has stopped around them.

  Christopher stood. "What's going…?"

  His voice drifted away as he saw why Aaron had stopped the car.

  It wasn't one or two cars here. It was a dozen, crumpled into one another, spanning the entirety of the highway. The one on the far right was tilted, leaning into a deep ditch that led down to railroad tracks below.

  "Can we get around?" asked Theresa.

  "I don't know," he said.

  The driver side door of the truck squealed on aged hinges. Christopher shifted to the side and saw Aaron climbing down.

  "Aaron, you think it's a good idea to get out?"

  "No," said the cowboy. "But I got to see if we can make it through."

  "Just slam through. We're in a big truck."

  "Not big enough. Too many cars."

  "Go around."

  Aaron looked up at him. Squinted. "What do you think I'm trying to figure out how to do?"

  Christopher was up and over the side of the truck bed before he had time to think about what he was doing.