by Brown, TW
“I found them,” he repeated, and his gaze dropped to them.
“Vance,” Marshawn snapped, “come away from there right now.”
The man ignored him. I glanced over at Marshawn, my eyebrows raised in question.
“Let’s go,” the big man finally said in a hoarse whisper.
“We leave him?” It wasn’t that I didn’t see the fact that Vance had gone mentally offline. But it was still so difficult to just walk away like this.
“There is nothing we can do.”
“Yeah, but…” My voice faded as I realized there were no ‘buts’ to be had here. The man was beyond our help.
“There is one thing we can do,” Marshawn suggested.
Before I could ask what that might be, he drew his handgun. The moment he did, the few zombie children that had turned our way went through that scary transformation where they became basically just like any other zombie. They began to shuffle our direction. That caused a few more on our side of the pack to turn, but there was another thing that happened at almost the same time. I saw it first, of that I am sure since Marshawn was busy lining up the shot that he was intending to end Vance’s life with. And a second sooner, he might’ve been successful.
From behind the man, hands reached out and clutched him, dragging him back. Somehow, the man lost his footing and toppled backwards. Since I lost sight of him, I will never know what really happened after that. Maybe he had a sudden realization. Truthfully, I hope not. I couldn’t imagine that moment of terror that took place just before the unspeakable agony of being ripped apart and fed upon occurred.
And when I heard the scream, I had no doubt that his fate was sealed. Even in some off chance that he was immune, the jet of blood that erupted from the pile of children in a crimson geyser told me there was no saving him.
Marshawn dropped his arm. He holstered his weapon and turned away from the terrible scene. I wished I’d been as quick to turn away. One of the zombie children in the midst of the crowd had something in his hands. From where I stood, not to mention all the blood, I couldn’t tell what part it might be, but the zombie child ripped a chunk free. Blood flowed down the little boy’s face as it chewed.
I spun on my heel and took off after Marshawn who had already started back toward where we’d left Rag-and-Bone Man. When we reached the place, I was still trying to shake off the feelings of what had just happened.
I asked myself why this was still hitting me so hard most of the way back. By the time we reached the building, we could actually hear the old man singing some song about rags and bones. It was catchy, but my mind was busy coming to grips with the answer I’d deduced in a surprisingly short period of time.
If it ever reached the point where seeing another person die so violently stopped having any effect on me, then maybe I was no longer fit to live in what was left of this world. I was also reaching another conclusion: Vance had known exactly where Don Evans and his people had relocated. We would be back to searching in a general area and likely following the trail of bodies he and his cronies left in their wake.
The old man had already secured the building and was checking the fence to ensure it was sturdy enough to pass his desired levels of security. When he spied us, he stopped his song and almost transformed before my eyes. In that instant, he appeared almost fatherly. There was a sadness in his eyes that reflected in their shiny surface. A tear even leaked down one cheek, carving a muddy path through the grime and dust.
“Lost one of yours,” the man said in a raspy whisper that was made even more coarse by his apparently tight throat that he cleared in order to continue. “So many lost…so few to carry on. And most ain’t worth the stuff you scrape from your shoes after stepping in a wet pile of shit.”
Perhaps not the most elegant eulogy, but it was certainly heartfelt. The man wiped at his face and sighed. Then, almost as if a switch was thrown, he returned to the mostly crazy persona we’d first met.
“Rag-and-Bone Man sorry ‘bout this, but it’s time y’all moved along. Gots me more of my weapons to make…things to trade for,” he crowed, turning in a flourish as his long, ratty coat swirled in his wake.
“Yeah, we have somebody we need to find anyways,” I said to his back.
Oddly enough, the man skidded to a stop and turned back to us. He hopped back and forth from foot to foot. “Give the name. Maybe we’ve passed and made a trade.”
“Don Evans,” Marshawn spat after I found myself unable to speak the name for some reason. “Likes to ride around in school buses and gun people down with a machine gun…unless he’s set on hanging them.”
The Rag-and-Bone Man staggered back as if Marshawn had struck him. He shook his head as if to clear it of cobwebs and then made some odd gestures in the air with his hands before hawking up a gob of phlegm and spitting it into the dusty ground at his feet.
“Man’s the devil in human skin,” Rag-and-Bone Man hissed. “Y’all best be runnin’ and hidin’ so as to not gain his notice. If’n you do…then your friend just suffered a merciful death. And he’s hiding out by the high school.”
With that, he hopped through the doorway and slammed it on us.
Marshawn looked at me. He had to be meaning Don Evans. That was the only reasonable deduction. The only thing we had to decide now was exactly which high school. I considered busting in the door and making the crazy old man tell us. The thing was, I doubted he could give us any more of an answer than what he’d given.
“We need to get moving,” Marshawn said as the moans of the undead could be heard from all sides.
We’d made more than a little racket in the past several minutes. Vance’s death had been a beacon for the undead to home in on, and I had no doubt that they were coming. Rag-and-Bone Man could deal with the issues himself. We had someplace to be.
***
Highway 212 was a wasteland of decaying bodies, burned out husks of vehicles, and the occasional mobile undead. We avoided some if they didn’t appear to notice us. And surprisingly, that number was much higher than I would’ve thought.
There was more than one case where we passed a home or small business with as few as one, but sometimes a dozen or more, zombies pawing and clawing at a door or window. The possibility that a living person might be inside had crossed my mind more than once, but not once did a person call out or try to get our attention. We certainly weren’t going to investigate each and every incident.
Eventually, we came to where the Highway 212 passed over Highway 26. I knew that Sandy was to our right. The easiest way to make our way to the high school would be to veer off and use that to travel.
Looking to the left, away from Sandy, I could see the dark plumes of numerous fires burning. That would be in the direction of Gresham if my internal compass was working. As we started along the long on-ramp that would dump onto Highway 26, we passed a sign for the Guide Dogs for the Blind school.
I had a thought so horrible that it sent a shiver through me. What had become of that place in this insanity? And with dogs apparently showing the same possibility for immunity that the living demonstrated, would that make things all that much worse.
As we walked in another of our long stretches of silence, I had to imagine how many people were either suffering, dying, or dead from any variety of illnesses. Diabetics, asthmatics, and the like. Their lives were no doubt ending in the most horrific ways. And then there were the mentally ill. So many of those who depended on others were facing such a terrible fate. Not for the first time, I had to wonder what the point would be to try surviving this nightmare?
Were we really surviving? Living? How could we feel good when every single day was a struggle? Had those that died early on truly been the ones spared?
“You okay?” Marshawn asked.
He was right beside me and his eyes held a curiosity that fought for its place amidst the sadness. I decided to just spill all my concerns and worries.
When I was done, there was an actual feeling of what was alm
ost peace. I had unburdened myself of all the things sitting on my chest. The only question now was whether or not I’d just dumped it onto Marshawn.
“Yeah.”
It was only one word. But it conveyed so much that I found I actually did not need for him to expound or clarify.
We reached Highway 26 proper and started the trek up the long, straight, and gradual incline. I knew we had a couple of hours before we would even be close to our destination. That would give us plenty of time to discuss it.
We’d gone only a short way, and I was about to ask Marshawn what he thought our plan of attack might be, when I could hear the low and distant sound of a vehicle’s engine. It was growing gradually louder.
We were trudging up the middle of the southbound lane, and that was the very direction the vehicle was coming from. At the moment it had to still be over the ridge because we couldn’t see anything.
Bounding down into the deep ditch dug out enough to catch the runoff from Mount Hood’s snowpack, we dropped to our bellies and waited. Eventually, an old Volkswagen Beetle drove past. I thought I could make out at least three people inside. That seemed like an odd choice for a vehicle to trundle about in during the ZPOC, but to each his or her own, I guessed.
Once we were certain that the vehicle was the only one, we climbed out onto the road and resumed our journey. We had just passed a burned-up AM/PM and were approaching the local Fred Meyer store on our side of the highway.
Even through the trees and with the small strip mall that sat close to the highway, I could see a lot of activity in that vast parking lot. There were zombies milling about everywhere. Through one break in the trees, I could see a large entrance. From the looks of it, somebody had torn the doors off, leaving a gaping hole where the doors once existed.
“Why the hell would somebody do that?” I mused aloud.
“Poison the well,” Marshawn replied.
“Say what?” I asked, unsure whether he had heard me right or not.
“Like the old days during wars. Troops would ransack an area for supplies and then poison the water wells so that armies chasing them could not utilize the resource.” He paused and leaned forward to peer past me at the crowded parking lot. “Somebody comes through here and empties out everything they can from the store, and then, to ensure that nobody else ventures inside, they rip the doors off giving the zombies full access. You would have to be stupid, desperate, or a combination of the two to go inside that place now.”
I nodded and returned my attention to what was ahead of me. I’d seen a few curls of smoke here and there, but up ahead, I could spot another. It looked to have almost burned itself out. Whatever it was sat along the side of the road just over the small ridge we were approaching.
As we crested the hill, I could see the hulking and charred remains of…a school bus! My steps were already picking up in tempo as my heart jumped to my throat with the excitement of this potential discovery.
A very small part of me held a kernel of disappointment at the possibility that somebody else had taken down Don Evans. A very small kernel. The overwhelming feeling that was building was one of relief.
Could we possibly be so lucky as to have come across the end of the evil son of a bitch? The closer we got, the more excited I became. Also, I was almost jogging as my tempo got faster and faster as I drew nearer. Marshawn was obviously feeling something similar as he matched my increased speed.
At last, we reached the remains of what had once been a standard yellow school bus. As we neared, I noticed that the parts not scorched by the fire were covered in some pretty vile graffiti. A lot of it seemed rather juvenile. The next thing I noticed was that the windows were all covered in aluminum foil for some inexplicable reason. The last thing that drove home the probability that this was not one of Don Evans’ vehicles was the lack of any firepower mounted on top.
Once we reached the bus, I could see that there were a few bodies strewn about that had died as one of the living. None of them sported the telltale head wound. One young man had most of his chest blown out with what had most likely been a close-range shotgun blast. His face was still twisted in pain and one of his hands looked to have been gone at with a blowtorch. The flesh was blackened and split. The nails had curled up out of the cuticle beds and each finger had plumped up like an overcooked sausage.
Now that screamed Don Evans despite the color of the young man’s skin. I had to guess that he’d clashed with Don Evans without realizing what he’d just bitten into.
This one had merited special treatment since all the rest of the corpses we discovered had simply been murdered outright. Some with a shot to the chest, others were gut shot, but each had been killed by a shotgun.
I was about to turn away and resume our journey when I heard a low moan from underneath the bus. It was not one of the moans of the undead. This was a pained sound.
I got down on my knees to look and saw a figure cuffed to the rear axle. When I shimmied underneath, I saw that the young man was possibly in his late teens. His dark skin was covered in a sheen of sweat.
I was now absolutely positive who’s handiwork I was witnessing. All the young men who were white had been simply executed. The only one that showed any signs of torture had also been white, but he’d been executed in the end. This young man was chained to the underside of the bus in a location where he’d easily been attacked.
There was another body under here as well, and it didn’t take a CSI specialist to put the scene together. This zombie had spotted this young man and crawled under the bus to get at him. There had been an obvious struggle, and somehow the poor, doomed man had managed to use his feet to pin the zombie’s head against the inside of a rear wheel and then stomp it until it was crushed under the onslaught. Unfortunately, the zombie had taken a chunk out of the man’s leg in the skirmish.
The man was walking on the razor blade of consciousness. I could hear him muttering something, but it was unintelligible. I crawled closer and drew my knife. The least I could do was end his suffering. Not that I owed him anything. But seeing a person suffer was never going to be easy. And it was such a simple thing to just stick him in the head and end him.
I was almost to the man when I heard a burst of gunfire. The concrete just to my left erupted in puffs of dirt and rock as bullets strafed a strip. As the sound evaporated on the wind, I could hear what sounded like boots hitting the pavement fast. They were growing distant. That had to be Marshawn, and he was obviously running for cover.
I had to bite my tongue to keep from calling out. It was possible that the shooter might not know I was under the bus. I had stopped moving and now tried to remain as still as possible. I couldn’t hear a thing over my heavy breathing and pounding heart.
I stayed still and did everything I could to get my heart rate down to something closer to normal. As things began to settle and quiet flooded back in, I stayed put and listened. Part of me wanted to call out to Marshawn, but I simply couldn’t. I just had a feeling that giving up my location was a bad idea.
As my heart settled and my breathing became normal, I realized that it had grown totally silent. Not a bird chirped, not a bug clicked. Then it struck me. The guy had stopped moaning and mumbling.
I craned my neck to get a look and saw that the man had gone still. His head had lolled over so that it faced my direction. His eyes were closed, and it was clear that he was no longer breathing. The man had died at some point in the past moment or two before I’d brought him mercy.
It was also at that moment that I got the first hint of the stench of the undead. Almost on cue, I saw one finger twitch. He was coming back!
Before he could open his eyes and fix me with their rheumy and tracer-riddled gaze, I scooted forward just enough so that my outstretched arm could reach, and I drove my knife into one of those closed eyes. There was only a moment of resistance, but the blade went in and that was the end of it.
As I pulled my knife back, I heard a new sound. It was the sound of
feet on gravel. They were coming from the direction we’d been heading. I also remembered distinctly that Marshawn’s retreat had gone in the opposite direction. This was quite likely our shooter.
Reaching down, I drew a pistol from my hip. If the opportunity presented itself, I could take this person out. If he was close to the bus, it would be more difficult. I might have to take him out at the legs and then finish him when he fell.
I couldn’t see anything, but I did hear a whispered voice. That meant more than one person most likely. Granted, I talked to myself plenty, but I was going to make the jump here and figure on multiple targets approaching.
I continued to wait without making a sound and ensuring that my pistol was ready to fire. My patience was eventually rewarded when three sets of legs came into view.
I considered the situation and decided now that perhaps just hoping they moved on would be better. If I got the drop on them, I could put at least one down, and perhaps two before they reacted. But I had serious doubts about three.
“Saw him go runnin’ off that way,” one of them men hissed in a voice I could barely hear.
“Donnie would pay nicely if we bring one back in time for the party,” a second man added in a voice that was squeaky and annoyingly high for a dude. It was enough to make me want to shoot him first.
“He’d prob’ly give us one of the newbies we rounded up from that last raid,” said the third.
I changed my mind after I heard the disgustingly sleazy laugh that followed. I wanted to drop these guys, and now that I was certain they were part of the Don Evans crew, that desire was amplified. The only problem was my desire for self-preservation.
I shifted slowly and silently to keep them in my sights as they crept past. It was as they passed me that I realized none of them were actually carrying a weapon in their hands. They had what I had to guess were automatic weapons slung casually over their shoulder. I could see a variety of pistols on their hips and the requisite machetes and long knives dangling from belts. None of them were carrying anything that resembled supplies. That was an assurance that they were camped close by.