Life Sentence

by Kim Paffenroth

  The man on the ground was moving away from us, backwards, on his back, like a crab. He looked astonished at how Lucy and I were behaving. I suppose he expected us to fall on him, tearing and biting, the way people so often expect us to do, but we just stood there for a moment.

  I heard several shots off in the direction Will had gone. This seemed to make the man on the ground decide on more violence, so he reached for a pistol that was in a holster on his belt. Lucy and I were not quick enough to dodge or run for cover, so again I didn't think, I just reacted. I pointed the gun and pulled the trigger.

  I had no idea if I was aiming it the right way, but I was very close to the man, so I thought I might hit something. The sound of the gun was terribly loud. Of all the things that had happened to me, that deafening blast pushing back on my face was the only thing that I remember distinctly as pain-and as guilt, sharp and penetrating as the retort or the bullet.

  Above the elbow, the man's arm exploded into bloody flesh and fabric, and he let out a howl. He clutched at the wound with his other hand, which was instantly covered with blood that oozed between his fingers. He fell back on the pavement.

  He had already gotten the gun out of the holster with his right hand, but he couldn't seem to raise it with his wounded arm. I walked over to him. Lucy was at my side, and I again barred her with my right arm, holding the gun. I think the sight of the blood stirred up her unholy appetites, and I didn't want to see that again. She turned slightly away from me and growled, but she seemed to master herself, or at least tolerate my restraint. I took another step and pressed my foot onto the man's wounded arm. He writhed and howled again, and finally dropped the pistol. I kicked the handgun under the cement mixer. Then I stepped back with Lucy.

  I didn't know what had happened to Will, and I didn't know if we should leave as he had instructed, or try to help him somehow. I feared the worst, but unlike when it happened in the heat of battle, making such tactical decisions was beyond me, once there was the possibility for consideration; I became totally paralyzed.

  The wounded man watched us. You could see how scared he was, but even through his obvious pain, the main thing I detected was shock and wonder at how Lucy and I were acting. He was breathing hard, and seemed to be in disbelief at how we just stood there.

  Fortunately, after a few moments of this standoff, Will came running back. He also looked surprised at what he saw, looking from the wounded man, to the gun, to me, to Lucy, and back to the man. Unlike me, he paused only for a minute. His gun was already out and aimed at the other man. I grabbed Will's arm. He looked at me and I shook my head.

  He looked back to the man. "All right, let's go." He pushed Lucy and me down the street, back in the direction we had come.

  Will kept looking over his shoulder, and we deliberately cut over one street, rather than continue on the street we had been on. In a few minutes, we were entering the less densely built-up part of the city, and there was still no sign of pursuit or attack. Will pulled us under a tattered awning, into a doorway, and let us rest for a minute.

  "What happened, Truman?" he asked. He immediately realized the futility of asking this way. "That guy must've been a guard on patrol. He found you, somehow you got his gun, and you shot him. Is that what happened?"

  I nodded, realizing I still carried the gun in my right hand. I was still revolted by it but now also fascinated. I held it by the stock, pointing down, and offered it to Will. He took it from me slowly, carefully.

  "It's all right, Truman. You were only defending yourself. You did the right thing. I found their little headquarters or base or whatever it was. They had another truck out in front of it. This one was a Humvee, more military-looking and well-kept. I punctured the tires on the one side, but then the guards there heard your shots, and they spotted me too. We both started shooting. I think I hit two of them. But they probably think they're being attacked by more than just the three of us, and they're not coming out. That's good. We should be able to get back to the fence and warn everyone that those guys who attacked Fran and the kids came from some base out here and we need to get ready for more attacks and fighting."

  I nodded. I was just glad to be away from that dead and frightening city.

  "But what am I going to do with you two?" Will wondered out loud. "I don't want to take you back to the storage place, even if I had time to make that detour. If there are other people out here, especially if we're at war with them, then I don't know what they'd do if they found a bunch of zombies just fenced in and defenseless. They'd probably burn the whole place down and kill you all. You'll have to come with me and I'll explain it as best I can. Zoey can tell them how you helped save her. They've got to understand."

  We kept moving along the street into an area where the buildings and vehicles were much more sparse. Soon we'd be back where at least Will was relatively safe, and I hoped Lucy and I would be too.

  Then I heard a loud roar ahead of us. It went on uninterrupted for several seconds. Unlike the previous day, I knew immediately that it was gunfire. And this time there were many more than just three shots.

  Will quickened his pace, and I wondered if these strange, powerful people ever stopped shooting at each other, ever stopped bleeding and cursing and dying.

  Chapter 21

  The sound was loud and sudden, like something angry being awakened. There were several pitches and tones, and it seemed to come from all over, down in the hole Dad and Mr. Caine had fallen into. I raised the 9mm and the flashlight until the beam found my dad. Grey, ghostly hands were grabbing at him.

  "Daddy!" Nothing in the cabin had given me such uncontrollable, unrestrained panic and terror. It was the only time I got close to losing it, and I've often thought since then how it was way too close for all of us. I shouldn't have done that, but there was no way not to, I think.

  You always hear how in those situations, it's as though things happen in slow motion. I don't really remember it that way, but it's possible, I guess. As I've said, memory is funny. I mostly remember, after my initial shriek, that things appeared so clear and precise, even though the room was still full of swirling dust that was making my eyes and throat burn. My dad and Mr. Caine were trying to stand up amidst the wreckage. Both were also trying to draw their weapons. But there were two hands on Dad's right arm, and because of his uneven footing in the debris, he was having trouble drawing his gun, or breaking away from the groping hands.

  I moved my beam slightly to the right and found the head that was guiding the two hands. Hairless, sexless, faded-it looked more like a ghost than a zombie. But there are no ghosts. There are only our monsters, and they're human, in their own way. They're not wisps that come through walls-they're completely solid and human. And when you shine a light in the eyes of someone who's been in a basement for twelve years, they have to falter for a second. No fear in those lifeless eyes, but for a moment, surprise and blindness.

  I squeezed the trigger. More grey, faded matter shot out the back of its head and it fell away from my dad. I felt none of the visceral, savage satisfaction I had gotten the previous day when I saw those evil men killed, but only the most intense relief.

  My dad and Mr. Caine freed both their weapons from their holsters. I swept my flashlight around to the right, where I'd shot the one zombie, and there didn't seem to be any more on that side. Dad and Mr. Caine pointed their flashlights to the left and opened fire. It was one long roar for several seconds. Then it stopped. No more moaning, just the small, animal pant of the living. Then a slight scraping sound, and a rasping.

  "You missed one," my dad said to Mr. Caine. He held up his gun. "I'm out."

  Mr. Caine trained his flashlight on a hand that was moving slightly, then slid the beam up and over to the head. There was one more shot, and everything was silent again.

  My dad slid another magazine into his gun. "You okay?" he asked Mr. Caine.

  "Yeah," Mr. Caine said, also reloading.

  "Haven't done that in a long time. Kind of le
ts you know you're alive, having to shoot the place up."

  Mr. Caine holstered his reloaded weapon. "Yeah, I know what you mean. But I think I could tolerate a more boring, less invigorating life, if it meant not having to go through that."

  Dad nodded. "Yeah." He looked up at me. "You okay?"

  I kept my own weapon out, pointed down. I could feel myself losing it again. "I don't know. Just get out of there."

  "Sure thing, kiddo," Dad said as he reached up. I holstered my gun so I could take his hand and help him out of the hole. He then helped Mr. Caine climb out.

  I threw my arms around my dad, letting myself lose control for just a second. "I thought for sure you were going to die," I sobbed into his chest. "I couldn't stand it."

  He ran his big, calloused hand over my head, and made those shushing noises people do when someone else is crying. I had made them the other night with Ms. Dresden. They seemed universal, and while not wholly adequate to the situation, they were usually enough to nudge the person back to normalcy and calm. "It's okay," he said between shushing.

  It only took me a second to regain control. Something inside me eased, the tension and pain fell below some threshold, and I knew I had cried the right amount and should stop now. I stepped back from my dad and shined my flashlight into the hole, running it across the tangle of limbs, then up the walls to where their brains were now glistening, lumpy stains. I brought it back down and let it settle on the one I had shot. It had been a man, and the impact had sent him crumpling to his side, almost in a fetal position.

  "They sat down there for twelve years," I said very softly. "How could anyone do that, just sit there? In the dark. I'd go crazy."

  "Anyone would," Mr. Caine offered, as both he and my dad rubbed my back and shoulders. "Maybe they did, too. We don't know."

  "To sit there, for twelve years, and then to just have your head blown off." I was biting my lower lip. It was an old nervous habit I'd mostly gotten rid of. "It doesn't make any sense. If they were just going to die anyway, why have them sit there, why not have them just die back when it first started?"

  My feelings were vague and hard to put into words, but I think my dad and Mr. Caine felt the unfairness and absurdity just as much as I did. Indeed, Mr. Caine was the main person who had taught me to have such a keen eye for those qualities in the world. "I know, Zoey," Mr. Caine said very quietly, almost in a whisper. "It was their special torment-their fate, I guess people would say. We don't know why. I'm fairly sure they didn't know why, either. Maybe it was better that they didn't know."

  "But there was a reason?"

  I wished I could see his eyes and his smile, but it was too dark and dusty in there. Mr. Caine's expression always made me feel more confident when he posed these questions in class, the way I was posing them that day. "I hope so, Zoey. No one can decide that for you. But I've always thought you knew much more about these things than other people do. And I don't know the reason for that, either. I just know it when I look at you."

  I nodded. I remembered what Milton had said on the night of my vows, how maybe it would be possible for me to have faith. I also remembered how before my vows, I had felt I was in the presence of something just as mysterious and powerful as it was familiar and trustworthy. I didn't feel that way now, but the memory gave me some confidence and comfort. I took my flashlight off the dead man. "I feel so sorry for them. But I had to save you."

  My dad hugged me again. "I know, honey. You did what you had to." It was funny, always doing what you have to. I wondered if people ever got to do just what they wanted to do.

  We started to move back out of the store. My dad steered me toward the glass compartment again. "I know it's not as nice now, but maybe we should get some of the stuff anyway," he said meekly. He was right-he had incredibly bad timing, but he was as practical and right as he always was. Rescuing something beautiful from this slaughterhouse and tomb was even more important and significant than it had been before. Not that we thought pretty dresses could make up for or offset the ugliness, but just that they might keep the brutality from overwhelming us completely.

  Oddly, I remembered a song my mom had sung to me when I was a baby: it said something about how you should "accentuate the positive," except some of the syllables were stretched out to fit the tune and it made them sound funny.

  Each of us took as many dresses as we could carry and loaded them in the back of the truck. They looked funny, draped over the dull metal poles and fencing. As Dad pulled down the truck door, a voice called out to us from the parking lot. "You three, lay down your weapons!"

  My dad instantly shoved me and Mr. Caine around to the right side of the truck, which was facing the building. Shots exploded around us, ricocheting off the pavement and tearing into the side of the truck.

  Mr. Caine drew his gun and stood by the back right wheel, while my dad pushed me to a crouch behind the front wheel, behind the protection of the engine block. If the shooters were using rifles, the thin metal skin of the rest of the truck wouldn't offer any real cover.

  My dad pressed against my shoulders as he leaned down and looked me in the eyes. "This is bad," he said quickly, evenly. He was scared, the way I had been for him back in the store. "People with guns are much worse than zombies. I love you, Zoey. You do whatever it takes to stay alive, you hear me?"

  I nodded. He let go of me and I drew my 9mm again. It was hard to tell if we were in worse danger now than we had been in the store, but since my dad was right next to me and not in a hole full of dead people, it certainly didn't seem as bad.

  My dad opened the door to the cab of the truck and leaned inside. I heard more shots as the windshield and the driver's side window exploded, but my dad emerged with the M16. It had a long, forty-round magazine in it, and another one taped to the first magazine. My dad closed the truck door and nodded slightly at me. There were no more shots for a few seconds.

  "Hey," my dad shouted, "didn't you have enough yesterday? Why do you want to mess with us again? And this time it's not just a woman and two girls. So why don't you all just back up and let us go about our business?"

  There was a long pause. Then a man shouted, "What are you talking about? We were attacked a couple days ago, and we just heard that we were attacked again this morning. You people need to throw your weapons out. We should've just shot you, but we saw the little girl."

  "We'll be keeping our weapons," my dad shouted back, "so it looks like we have a problem."

  Another pause, though not as long as the first. "We don't know who you are. And we've been attacked twice, with people hurt and killed. So I say you need to throw down your weapons."

  "Well, we were attacked yesterday, and I don't know who you are, so I'm damn sure not giving up my weapon," Dad replied. "And I will cut down any of you who tries to come closer. We can wait, and more of our people will come looking for us, and then you'll have a real war on."

  "No one wants that," came the reply. "Can one of you come out to talk? The others can stay behind the truck, with their weapons."

  My dad looked over to Mr. Caine, then down at me. "That's probably as good an offer as we're going to get," he said to me quietly. He tilted his head back and shouted, "All right. I'll come out and talk."

  My dad handed me the M16, bent down and kissed my head. "Don't do anything crazy to try and protect me," he said. "Just stay put. But anyone comes around this truck but me, shoot them in the face."

  He walked to the back of the truck and handed his Beretta to Mr. Caine. They spoke in low tones, but I could hear them. "It's like déjà vu from eleven years ago, fighting to keep this kid alive and get her home," my dad said. He glanced back at me. "Always good to have something worth fighting for. I know you'll do whatever you have to, Jonah, just like you did then. I'm sorry I got you and her in this mess."

  "Not your fault, Jack," Mr. Caine responded. "Just talk some sense into them if you can. Maybe they're not the ones who attacked Fran and the kids. There's no point anybody dying here
today."

  I watched my dad walk around the side of the truck, then I just listened. It sounded like Dad was talking to a man close by.

  "Who are you people?" the other man asked.

  "We're from a nearby city. We've been barricaded in there since the outbreak. We haven't seen other people from outside our community for years, until yesterday, when some men broke through our fence and attacked us. We killed them, then we came here, looking for more supplies to repair the fence. Then you started shooting at us."

  "These men who attacked you, did they have a vehicle?"

  "Yes, a dump truck. There were six of them. They had a flag, with wavy lines, a handprint, and a sun."

  "Those sound like the men who attacked one of our outposts. A child escaped from that massacre and described them. That's our flag that you described. They took it as a trophy when they attacked our people."

  "And who, exactly, are you people?"

  "We are from the River Nation. We've lived on islands up and down the river since the day the dead rose. Gradually, the people got more organized, came together as a group to defend ourselves and find more supplies. And recently, we've been able to move about a little on the mainland. There seem to be less of the dead in this area lately, and we thought it was safe to establish villages here, until we were attacked."

  "Yes, there are fewer dead around because we've been rounding them up, to make the area safer."

  "You round the dead up? So you can dispose of them?"

  "Well, no, we've found places to lock them up, keep them contained so they can't attack us."

  There was a longer pause in the conversation at that point. "You keep the living dead around? You don't destroy them?"