"Not if we can help it."
Another pause. "That's very strange. We're not sure-the report just came in and it was very confused-but someone said that in the attack today, the man who shot at our people was seen with two zombies. The zombies attacked one of our men, but they didn't attack the stranger. They ran off with him. That's who we were looking for when we found you. Is this some plan of yours, to train and lead zombies to attack other people?"
"No, of course not. We didn't know there were other people until yesterday. And we don't train zombies. We just put them somewhere and lock them up, so we don't have to kill them. Those assholes in the dump truck attacked you people, then they attacked us, and we killed them."
"And what about today's attack?"
"That I know nothing about," my dad answered truthfully. "I think we just need to calm down and stop pointing guns."
Knowing of Will and his zombie friends, I had to say something. "Dad?" I called out over the hood of the truck, but without coming out from cover.
"Not now," he shot back.
"No, I think it's important. I think we can put our guns down. I think I know part of what's going on."
"Don't come out from behind that truck, Zoey." There was a pause. "Jonah, go listen to what Zoey has to say, then tell me what we should do."
Mr. Caine walked over to me, and I quickly told him of how Will and two zombies had helped save me the previous day. I told him how, according to Will, these zombies were more intelligent than others, and were mostly cured of their appetite for human flesh, though I had seen the one eat a man right in front of me.
As I was describing this to Mr. Caine, I heard my dad continuing to negotiate with the man. "She's my daughter. And the other guy, he's just a school teacher. I'm sort of in charge. You can just let them go, whatever it is that's happened."
Mr. Caine looked very surprised and worried at my story. I knew Will had always been a free spirit at best, and a little out of control at worst, and I'm sure Mr. Caine felt partly responsible if something bad had happened as a result of his adoptive son's behavior.
"Jack," he called out when I was done, "I think we should come out and discuss this. I don't think these people are to blame for what's happened, or their response to it."
There was another pause before my dad agreed, and Mr. Caine and I came out from behind the safety of the truck. The man who had been talking to my dad was dressed in the kind of clothes that Will usually wore when he was out in the wild-heavy canvas with metal pieces sewn onto the fabric to protect him from bites. He was probably my dad's age, not as tall-kind of short, in fact-but he had the same air of practicality and efficiency.
Unlike our clothes, his seemed to have some insignia, like a military rank, and they appeared somewhat better made than most of ours.
I tightened my hold on the grip of the M16 and scanned the cars around us, but couldn't see where the other people were.
My dad put his hand on my shoulder. "Easy," he said quietly. "It's not time for heroics. Just tell me what's going on."
I repeated the story of Will and the intelligent zombies. When I was done, my dad turned back to the military-looking man. "We knew nothing about this. If this is true what Will has done, we will deal with it. But this is not our fault. You should let us go back to our city."
"I believe you," the man agreed. "I don't think you knew about this. But we can't let you just drive away with some vague assurance that you will ‘deal with' this madman and his zombies. If you leave here now, you might just protect him. And then we will go to war. We've done it before, against smaller groups who thought they could attack us or raid our supplies."
Dad's grip tightened on my shoulder. "Who said anything about ‘smaller group' there, fella? And how did this city get to be ‘your supplies' when you're only here because we cleared out all the zombies? I got a whole building full of weapons we've never used before, just waiting for another guy stupid enough to threaten us."
Mr. Caine finally intervened. "Enough of the posturing and threats, both of you. We understand that the River Nation wants justice, and we're sorry for the people who were hurt and killed in these attacks. I take it you are someone in authority?" He was being a lot more obsequious than I'd ever seen him, but he'd judged the situation rightly, I think.
"Yes," the man said in a less threatening tone. "I am a commander of the military forces, Colonel Reiniger."
Mr. Caine saw that he had gained some leverage. "So if you were to come with us and oversee the investigation we make of Will, you'd consider that fair, and you could report back to your people whether or not we had done what was necessary to prevent war?"
The colonel considered, and finally agreed to Mr. Caine's terms. Disaster was averted for the time being, though I wasn't sure we'd be able to punish Will to this man's satisfaction, so I thought the problem had just been postponed.
Five men armed with rifles emerged from among the cars in the parking lot. They were dressed similarly to the colonel, though each one wore a different insignia. The colonel told two of his men to report back to their people in the city. He then turned to us. "You may drive the truck back with the supplies. We didn't think anyone could've survived out here, without the water as a barrier, so we understand if you need to build back up your protection from the dead. We'll follow you in our vehicle."
The colonel and his three remaining men walked out among the cars as we climbed into the truck. Mr. Caine started the engine. "Nice going back there," Dad said. "I let things get a little too heated."
Mr. Caine nodded. "It happens. The ‘just a schoolteacher' comment was a little uncalled for."
My dad snickered grimly. "I was just trying to talk you two out of it. Your way worked better."
We saw some cars shudder and jerk slightly, and then the vehicle that had been pushing them out of the way came into view. It was a Humvee, with the same sort of extra bumper for pushing cars that our truck had. With some maneuvering, they turned around, and we pulled out with them behind us.
To leave the parking lot, we had to go under an overpass. I looked into the passenger's side mirror at the Humvee, and I thought I saw something drop down onto the vehicle. The vehicle jerked one way, then the other, and crashed into a concrete barrier.
Chapter 22
After we heard the long burst of gunfire, we made off in the direction from which it came. It sounded fairly close, and Will periodically stopped to look around with binoculars. After moving and searching like this for some time, he spotted something. "There," he said, pointing to the left. "There's a vehicle moving among the cars in that parking lot. We'll be able to see better from up on that overpass."
We clambered up the embankment and over the guard rail, and with his binoculars Will looked out over the parking lot of a ruined shopping center. Several people moved among the cars in front of us, and three emerged from a store, carrying big, white bundles to a nearby truck. I heard a voice, though I couldn't make out the words, then more gunfire; the three people from the store ran behind the truck.
The gunfire stopped, and there was more shouting. One person came out from behind the truck and joined one of the people who had been hiding among the cars. Their voices were low enough that I couldn't hear them, but I took it they were talking again. Then the other two people emerged from behind the truck.
Finally, all the men among the cars came out from hiding. Two of them went off on foot, while the others went back to their vehicle, and the three people who had had the white bundles got into the truck. The other vehicle maneuvered till it was behind the truck, then they both started moving slowly, sometimes bumping into cars and pushing them out of their way.
Will lowered his binoculars and looked around the overpass, which was littered with vehicles and various other things. I could tell he was formulating some plan, and part of me wanted to help, but I also wasn't really up to all this. Out of the back of a pickup, which was smashed into some other cars, Will got out two cinder blocks. He
set them on top of the guard rail at the side of the overpass. "The people in the truck are my friends," he said. "The one man is the man who raised me, and then there's Zoey and her dad. I don't know what the other men are doing, but they just shot at them, so it can't be good. It looks like they're leading them somewhere. They're going to drive out this way. You two crouch down here, and after the truck goes past, try to push the blocks over so they fall on the Humvee. I'll go down and try to stop them when they get out."
As too often with Will and the other people, I felt sure that words like "stop" meant "kill." For people who could talk, they certainly did way too much communicating in violent, non-verbal ways.
"Can you two do this?" Will asked.
I doubted very much that I could. I most certainly did not want to, but if the intelligent and kind-looking girl was in danger, I felt I had to help.
"Can you do this?" Will repeated.
Lucy and I nodded.
"Okay. But please, stay up here. This is all too dangerous, and I don't know what's going to happen."
He ran to the end of the overpass. Across his back, he carried the gun I had taken from the man I had shot, and he had his own handgun out and ready to use.
The two vehicles slowly made their way through the parking lot, as it was hard for them to find spaces that weren't crowded with abandoned vehicles. The cars thinned somewhat closer to the overpass, and the two vehicles moved faster, though still fairly slow.
The truck passed under us, and as the other vehicle approached, Lucy and I shoved the two cinder blocks off. I could hear glass shattering, then the sounds of brakes, then more smashing glass and a heavier crunch of metal.
I heard car doors opening, and men cursing. Lucy took my hand and led me to the other end of the overpass. I was frightened, but I couldn't let her go by herself. Besides, hiding hadn't done us any good the other two times these people had decided on violence. We worked our way between the wrecked cars and climbed down the embankment on the side facing away from the shopping center.
As we scrambled down, I heard various shouts.
"No, Will! Don't!"
"What is this, a trap?"
Lucy and I must've made some noise, because suddenly I was staring down the barrel of a rifle. I was surprised to see the intelligent-looking girl holding it. These people even had their children use guns, which I found quite monstrous and reprehensible.
I gripped Lucy's hand tighter, and raised it, along with my other hand, hoping this would be enough of a sign that we meant no harm. The girl slightly lowered the hideous, black rifle and called out, "Dad, they're here. The two I saw before."
She was near the front of the truck, closest to Lucy and me. The tall man and another man were on the other side, closer to the vehicle Lucy and I had dropped the cinder blocks on. Three men were out on both sides of that vehicle. Will was beyond those men, closer to the shopping center. Everyone was holding guns, pointed at each other.
The tall man near the truck looked over his shoulder at Lucy and me. He didn't turn all the way around, but kept his gun pointed at the other men. He looked us over. "These are the ones you told us about, Zoey?"
"Yes, Dad."
He turned away from us to keep his eye on the men from the other vehicle. "Either one of them so much as twitches, blow their smart zombie brains out. Let's see if they understand that."
The intelligent-looking girl kept her gun slightly lowered. "But, Dad," she said.
"I need that order acknowledged, Zoey. Now."
The girl raised the terrible rifle again. She squared her shoulders and her muscles tensed as she lined up the sights, the barrel pointed right at my face. "Yes, Dad," she said more quietly than her father had spoken. There was a little of his edge in her voice, and though her pretty brown eyes still looked extremely intelligent, she narrowed them and they did not look nearly as kind. I was glad she was the one pointing a gun at us, though-mostly because I felt more confident she wouldn't shoot us for no reason. I was glad the gun was pointed at me rather than Lucy. But even more than that, I had a strange sense that if such an intelligent, innocent person were to judge us a deadly, implacable threat, maybe we needed to be put down.
"Jack! No!" Will shouted from the other side of the people and the vehicles. "It's not their fault!"
"No," the tall man, Jack, responded, "it's not their fault, Will, it's yours!"
"You can't, Dad," the girl said, though the barrel of her rifle didn't waver at all. "They saved my life."
"We can't shoot zombies? Will went around shooting people, for God's sake! Without letting any of us know, or checking out what was going on. That's what caused this, and now we have to figure out a way to stop it. Shooting zombies is something I definitely can do if it helps straighten things out."
"But they attacked us!" Will shouted.
Fortunately, the conversation had not been punctuated with gunfire, but at this point it degenerated into incoherent shouting, in which I could make out variously, "No we didn't!… No they didn't!… Yes they did!… No, you did!" I suddenly felt very cold and empty-almost pained, even though I wasn't sure I could feel pain exactly. Lucy and I were going to die simply because these people seemed to end all their conversations with shooting.
I tightened my grip on Lucy's hand and thought at least I'd die with her, instead of alone. That was something. Maybe I could even shield her if I could move fast enough once these strange, monstrous people started their inevitable slaughter.
The girl lowered her rifle and took a step towards us. She put her right hand out in front of herself, with the palm towards us, as if to show she meant us no harm. For some reason it occurred to me that, from the way she was holding her gun, she must be left-handed, and I thought how ironic that was, since there was an old superstition that left-handedness was evil, and she was the only one behaving kindly, or even rationally. But that was only superstition, and I didn't think people believed in that anymore.
I nodded and took a step back, pulling Lucy with me.
The girl turned towards the men and shrieked, "Stop it! Just stop it!"
The two men closer to her glanced back at her, and they all stopped shouting.
In a lower but very firm and decisive tone, the girl said, "Mr. Caine, tell Will what happened."
"Will," the man beside Jack began, "the men who attacked Fran and the girls had attacked these people the day before. When they attacked them they took the flag of this city. That's why it was on their truck. When you shot at them this morning, you hurt innocent people. You have to stop now, please." He sounded very plaintive and sad, but like the girl, intelligent and reasonable.
Will had said his father was one of the two men, and I sensed such a bond between Will and this man, Mr. Caine.
I was now ashamed at the part I had played in all this, but I also knew I couldn't have let Lucy get hurt, back in the city. So I felt shame, but not guilt. I could see Will was distraught at what had happened, too.
"Will," the tall man said, "you need to stand down and come with us."
"What?" one of the men by the other vehicle objected. "We're taking him prisoner!"
"You know you have no right," Jack said with exceptional evenness, clarity, and coldness.
Besides the girl's rifle, every other gun was still pointed at someone's head. I again got that empty, icy feeling that I was going to die next to Lucy.
"You have no… no… jurisdiction," Jack said. "That's the word."
The other man gave a snorting laugh. "Jurisdiction? What are you talking about? There's no jurisdiction or law anymore!"
"Suit yourself," Jack said. "But if there's no law, then there's just guns, and we both got 'em, and that's how we'll settle it. But he is definitely coming home with us now, and we'll decide what happens to him."
There was a pause that seemed endless to me. Mr. Caine spoke. "Colonel Reiniger, this doesn't have to change our agreement. You come with us, we decide what happens to Will, and you report back to your peo
ple. If our decision is unacceptable, then there's war, but not now."
"He attacked us again!" the other man said.
"All right, that's true," Will's father said wearily. "But so long as your driver isn't too badly hurt, then I guess what we're asking you to do is to overlook this last incident, to forgive that mistake, so we can decide on what to do and not have more killing."
"We were ambushed. You might try it again if we come with you. I never should've trusted you," Colonel Reiniger said.
Mr. Caine sighed. "All right," he said as he put his hands up and walked over to the truck. "I'm putting down my gun." He set it on the hood of the truck. "I'll stay here with your men. Will is my son. It's fair I stay here in his place. You go on ahead. Is that fair enough?"
I was amazed all over again; these people were ready to kill for no reason one minute, then ready to sacrifice themselves for each other the next. I felt it was some kind of mystery that I might never understand.
"Jonah, you don't have to," Jack said. "You shouldn't."
"Or what, Jack?" He sounded exasperated as well as weary. "You said it yourself-the other choice is we start shooting. Maybe, if they're lucky, then Zoey and those two," he tilted his chin towards us, "would be left standing, since they have a better position behind us and the truck. I know the meek are supposed to inherit the earth, but shit, Jack, I don't feel like shooting anymore today. And I want someone to get home."
"No, don't," Will protested. "I'll stay."
"No, Will," his father said, "Jack's right-we can't let these people decide your fate. It's not their place. You're our responsibility. You're my responsibility." He turned back towards the men by the other vehicle. "Now, Colonel, is that fair, so at least they can get home?"
The colonel stepped back and looked inside his vehicle, like he was checking someone there. "His head's banged up and bleeding, but I think he'll be all right," he said. "He'll stay here with you and one of my other men, and they'll take you back to our base. I'll take one man and go on after the truck. That is a reasonable solution."
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