Along the Winding Road

by Marlee Pagels

  “Okay! Good!” Arthur stood stiffly, opening his mouth again before glancing over at Charlotte. He struggled for a second before blurting out, “Toothpaste!” and hurrying to the stairs.

  She burst into laughter again, half-collapsing onto an armrest, as he gathered his necessities. From all the clattering, she assumed his motor control wasn’t currently at its finest.

  After a few minutes, he came back downstairs, bucket swinging on his arm. He paused, stared at Charlotte, and then fled to a bedroom.

  “Might as well keep the water drum empty in case it rains and such,” he said, returning with an old San Antonio Spurs drawstring bag. After cramming his supplies inside in no particular order, he pulled the top closed. Once the bag hung on his shoulders, he grabbed the bucket and his bow.

  “Ready?” Charlotte responded, standing up.

  Arthur nodded. “Let’s get out of this place.”

  “All right.”

  Charlotte charged ahead, opening the door and limping into the sunlight. Blinking away the dazzle as the door creaked closed behind them, she made sure her rifle was loaded and led the way forward.

  5

  “So, where precisely is Hunt?” Arthur inquired as he and Charlotte headed down the road.

  In response, Charlotte’s chin tilted up. She peered at the two clouds overhead, drifting slowly despite the lack of a breeze. “Thirty degrees, four minutes, and fifteen seconds north; ninety-nine degrees, twenty minutes, and fifteen seconds west.”

  Arthur stared back at her, and she laughed.

  “Less precisely,” she said, “south and west of here. It was about three hours from Killeen the last time I rode over, but sadly, we won’t be taking a car through light traffic.”

  Arthur nodded, gaze drifting behind him to his old, safe house. It disappeared behind the trees. After a moment of nervously toying with a strap of his backpack, he pushed it out of his mind and watched Charlotte instead.

  He stumbled when they passed from pavement to grass.

  “We’re, um, not taking the road?” he asked before she could comment on his fall. Charlotte still grinned at him, so he hunched over, shoving his free hand in his pocket.

  “I wasn’t planning to,” she said. “There aren’t many abandoned homes in the brush, and it’s a shorter route. Softer to step on, too.”

  Arthur’s eyebrows lifted. “Fewer abandoned homes is a good thing now?”

  “Yeah.” She slowed and rubbed her shoulder. “Empty houses freak me out a little.”

  Arthur matched her pace then stopped alongside her. She straightened out her hair and checked for visitors before crossing another street.

  He nearly tripped on the paving again. Clearing his throat, he said, “Except when you want gelatin.”

  With a light laugh, she sidestepped a chunk of asphalt. “All right, so I make exceptions sometimes.”

  “Are you glad you did?” He halted mid-step, his right foot hanging comically in the air. “Well, um, besides me nearly killing you—that’s rather obviously nothing to be glad about.”

  She hummed, her gloved fingertips passing over her wound. “That’s definitely a downside, but nothing’s all bad.” She looked at him sideways, one corner of her mouth creeping up. “Still, you’re going to have to do me an awful lot of good before I can say finding you was worth the trouble.”

  He straightened his back, shoulders squared. “I shall do my best,” he replied in a stiff voice.

  She laughed but trailed off. The smell of rotten meat was getting stronger. Pace slowing, she slipped her rifle out of its scabbard. Arthur drew an arrow from his quiver and nocked it.

  Another minute of quiet crunching steps passed before they caught a glimpse of torn, sallow skin. A single monster, visible through the brush to their left, perked up at the sight of them.

  “I’ve got this one.” Arthur ducked under a thin tree branch and crept ahead until he had a clear shot. A moment of aiming later, he let the arrow fly. The zombie pitched backwards with a throaty cry and thudded to the ground. Little but the fletchings stuck out of its stomach.

  “Not bad,” Charlotte said as he lowered his bow. Despite flushing at the compliment, he shrugged and walked toward the dead monster.

  “Oi!” Charlotte stepped after him with a glance at her compass. “What, you don’t think that did it in?”

  “Of course it did,” he called back, not stopping. “I have to get the arrow back, though.”

  “Oh.” She came to a halt. For some reason that hadn’t occurred to her. It made sense enough, though. And if he could shoot those as many times as he liked, she wouldn’t have to worry so much about her number of cartridges.

  “From now on, you get first shot,” she called as he started back, the cleaned-off arrow returned to his quiver.

  He approached, bow resting on his shoulder, and stopped beside her. “I can handle that.”

  ~*~

  Charlotte left the creatures up to Arthur whenever possible, and they made enough progress to have sore feet. Arthur even shot down a good meal of coyote.

  As the stars began to fade into view, Charlotte finished up her sleeping arrangement in a thick-trunked tree and looked down. Arthur was perched a few branches below, some leaves tickling at his cheek.

  “Do you want help putting a nest together?” she asked, leaning over the edge of her sleeping bag.

  He craned his neck to look up, his shoulders pressed against the trunk. “No, it’s not worth it. I won’t be going to sleep, anyway.”

  “All right.”

  Charlotte crawled backwards until her hands scraped on bark. With a rustle, she dropped onto the branch above Arthur. “You should try to get some rest, though.”

  A cackle of laughter nearly knocked her out of the tree. Arthur cut himself off as he realized it wasn’t a very polite response. Clearing his throat, he looked out over the forest, the faint moonlight highlighting the fresh leaves all around.

  “Sorry. Um, I usually try. I just don’t succeed.” He exhaled. “It’s impossible. Even if all of the people and most of the zombies have left me alone, I can’t relax. When it’s peaceful, when it’s quiet—” he snapped “—that’s when they start speaking to me. I don’t know if they’re ghosts or something else. I can never make out the words; whispers and murmurs are all I get. Sometimes shouting, but never distinct. If I knew what they wanted, maybe I could shoo them away, but I have no such luck. They’re always lurking in the background, waiting for me to let down my guard, then bam! There they are again, talking away, never letting me rest, and…”

  He looked up at Charlotte, and while her expression wasn’t clear beneath the shadows, her nod was a bit too slow.

  He looked back out at the darkness. “And then I stop talking, since I’m making myself sound like a complete lunatic in front of the girl I’m trying to impress.” He froze. “And that entire sentence came out of my mouth.” His forehead thunked onto his knees, bone against bone.

  “Um, please go to bed now,” he finished, voice weak.

  Charlotte climbed back to her nest like an unsure spider and complied.

  ~*~

  Jerky for Charlotte and a handful of trail mix for Arthur made up their breakfast. The sun had climbed enough to start baking them before he started, “Do you think we could stop by Austin?”

  “Austin?”

  “I mean, I think it’s still south of here, so it shouldn’t be off the path. If you don’t want to, that’s fine. I just wanted to see what’s left. Of the university. Maybe, um, see if anyone I know is still there.” He rolled his shoulders back. “It’s—it’s not a big deal or anything, just a suggestion.”

  With a glance at her compass, Charlotte turned her toes due south. “Sure?” She continued with slow steps. “If it’s not out of the way, I don’t see why not.”

  After a moment she picked up the pace. “I guess this journey is about me finding someone I care for.” She smiled. “You might as well get in on it, too.”

 
; He dipped his head, watching his step as he waited for his blushing to fade. “Um, thank you.”

  “No problem.”

  For a while there wasn’t much of a difference between traveling south and traveling southwest. Woodland alternated with scrubland, and a few roads sliced through the dirt and grass. The occasional body lay sprawled across the ground, each of them too far gone to know if the person had been infected.

  On the other side of a row of trees, a whole neighborhood emerged. How the rows of tan brick and red shingles had been hidden until now Charlotte couldn’t say. She only knew that this ghost town seemed to be slowly closing in on her.

  She hurried through without a word. Arthur glanced through a few poorly boarded windows but followed suit.

  Springy woodland ground was underfoot again before Arthur grabbed Charlotte’s shoulder and pulled her to a stop.

  “Ar—?”

  He pressed a finger to his lips and motioned for her to stay put. Glancing about the forest, he withdrew an arrow and slipped through the trees. His footfalls were silent on the grass.

  Charlotte peered after him until she couldn’t tell him apart from the tangle of branches. What on earth was he doing? Did he just feel like sneaking up on an infected for some reason? Possibly no reason, given the way his mind worked. She could cut him some slack, though. As long as he was doing something useful, she was more than happy to wait.

  Despite that, she found herself kicking up dirt as the moments dragged on. It was only noon, but wasting daylight was wasting daylight. Her hand hovered over her pocketful of dried beans—if she ate, this moment of rest would at least be useful.

  Certain it would be impolite to eat without him, she crossed her arms and looked around. Her gaze drifted from branches to withered grass to the oddly corpse-free stretch of land behind her. A minute into her idle observations, she noticed the deer prints ahead. The pieces fell together just before Arthur resurfaced with a rustle.

  With widening eyes, she jutted out her lower lip and made it quiver. “You didn’t kill Bambi, did you?”

  “Well, he’s still bleeding out somewhere, so no, not yet.” Arthur’s eyes flashed up to meet hers, and his grin widened to show a few more off-white teeth. “Would you like to watch me rip out his organs?”

  Dropping the act, she wrinkled her nose. “Not particularly.” She cast a glance southward and added, “How long will it take?”

  “Er…” Arthur looked over his shoulder. “I’ve never exactly timed it, but… But, but, but… Yes, I have no idea. If you’d rather me not take too much time, I could, uh, take out the organs and bring the rest along to skin later. He wasn’t that awfully large.”

  Charlotte tapped her fingertips on her thighs. To be honest, her mouth was already watering from the thought of substantial meat for lunch. Luckily, the mental image of Arthur scooping out all the deer’s organs dulled her appetite.

  “All right,” she finally said, reaching back towards her rifle scabbard. “I can switch to Head Infected-Killer while your arms are full.”

  “No, no, I’ll be fine. I mean, look after yourself if you stay over here, but…” He withdrew the knife in his backpack and took a step back. “I shall be back shortly.”

  “Be careful” was her obligatory response.

  He nodded in acknowledgement and stepped into the forest.

  She considered tagging along as backup, but he had probably handled this by himself many times before. And, while she’d blow half-rotten monsters to pieces during her day job, she hadn’t been so desensitized to deer getting their slimy guts strung out.

  She drummed her fingers on the butt of her gun and looked around yet again. To the south lay a small path with more trees beyond it. The woods to the north were wide, but the sharp rooftops of that last neighborhood still peeked above the leaves. The houses looked normal down to their flawless shingles; the view wouldn’t have made her shiver had she not seen the hollow heart of the place.

  Aside from the breeze and a few birds, the wilderness was silent. Bambi was most likely not fighting back, and Arthur wasn’t happy enough about his kill to sing out as he gutted the poor thing.

  Charlotte cast another glance south in time to eye the next infected roaming her way. At its state of decay, it was an even easier shot than the last one. She aimed between its scavenger-pecked eyes and clicked the trigger back. A perfect headshot.

  The bolt slid back, and she grabbed the next magazine.

  Something else grabbed the rifle barrel.

  A man’s hand jerked her gun back, and her right palm slapped to the stock to strengthen her grip. Her duffel bag strap dug into her shoulder as it was pulled back. She staggered, and the attacker yanked the rifle farther towards him. Unable to pull it back in front of her, Charlotte just tightened her grip. Teeth gritted, she tried to take a few steps forward. The rifle stock slammed into the side of her head.

  Her legs faltered as she yelped, but she refused to let her fingers loosen. A sensation she didn’t like tingled down her back. She couldn’t shake the frantic white spots from her vision. Warmth trickled behind her ear.

  “Help!” she yelled before the stock slammed into her head again.

  Her grip tensed of its own accord before failing. Breaths ragged, she whipped around, a fist aimed at anything behind her. It pounded into some hard lump of muscle that didn’t budge. Her punishment was another crack to the head.

  With a rush of chilly blood, she went dizzy, her next punch failing to hit anything but dust motes. She barely registered the bulky blur of the man in front of her before she hit the ground in an unconscious heap.

  6

  Arthur stalked after the drippy red trail. He still didn’t understand how a deer with two arrows in its chest could run this far without keeling over. Its path of blood was thickening, though, so it would be dead as a dry stump when he got to it.

  “Help!”

  He froze, his shoe crunching onto wet grass. Was that Charlotte? No one else was out here. That he knew of. Of course, there were always the voices.

  That had sounded an awful lot like Charlotte, though. And if she was screaming for help, he dared not take any chances.

  Not bothering to find a clear path, he pelted headlong through the trees. Branches snapped against his face and arms until the footpath finally came up. Gasping, he skidded to an unstable stop, but Charlotte was nowhere to be found. Even so, he was sure he had gone in the right direction. The realization of both of these things resulted in him tramping through the trees shouting her name. This soon proved to be a terrible strategy.

  Breathing in gasps he couldn’t slow down, he backtracked to the last place he had seen her. Approximately. The path all looked the same—but just over there was an entirely different blood trail. The drips and trickles weren’t much, but it took all his rational mind not to go sprinting in the first promising direction.

  He had left her all alone despite having hurt her, and now she could have been in real, honest danger because of him.

  Struggling not to hyperventilate, he followed the little dribbles of blood.

  ~*~

  “So, what’s the haul?”

  Still squatting, Manfred tossed the last of the backpack’s contents on the floor. “Decent amount of jerky and a few odds and ends. The rifle still works, and there’re a ton of bullets with it.”

  “Nice.” His brother eyed the collection spread over the splotchy, off-white tile. “I’m guessing the gun is yours?”

  The younger man organized the shrink-wrapped sheets of jerky like they were pages of a report. “If someone else got a hold of this, he’d be able to overpower me. We don’t want a revolt on our hands, do we?”

  “Guess not. No chance I could have it?”

  Manfred turned his gaze back to his brother and frowned. “Do you even know how to shoot a rifle?”

  “Aim and pull the trigger?”

  “That’s not—” He sighed, jaw clenched. “No, there’s no chance. It’s mine.”
<
br />   “Fine.” Milton’s gaze slid over onto the other person in the room. “Hope you’re not planning to keep all the booty for yourself, though.” He grinned and tilted his chin down to get a better look at her.

  Leaning towards the bed, Manfred rested his arms on his knees. “I shouldn’t. It could take a year before another girl happens to come through, and some of the single guys could get pissed off in the meantime.” He looked sideways at Milton. “Possibly one in particular?”

  “Who, me?” Milton whipped off his glasses so his brother could see how wide his eyes were. Manfred rolled his own and looked back at Charlotte.

  She wasn’t gorgeous, but she had a full chest and good complexion. Much better than some withered-up straggler. Hopefully she’d be all right with some usage, but it didn’t matter in the end. She was going to do as he said. He wouldn’t use unnecessary force, at least, and he could afford to make her a privileged member of the group otherwise. He already had supplies for the lot of them for forty-three weeks and two days, so he could factor her in without too much of a risk. There were still houses to raid around farther out, and sending a group wasn’t a lot of trouble.

  So she was a blessing, plain face or not.

  “Keep an eye on her,” Manfred said, getting up and throwing the duffel bag over his shoulder with a clattering sound. “I’m going to run the medical supplies to Denver’s place.”

  “Yessir,” Milton replied, planting his rear on the edge of the bed frame. He squinted dutifully at Charlotte’s chest. She didn’t seem to mind.

  At the moment she was more concerned about whatever was crushing her brain. On some level, she did wonder what those voices had been saying, but she had enough problems already.

  ~*~

  Charlotte’s trail was gone.

  It didn’t end in a great pool of blood and her corpse, so that was good. At the same time, Arthur wasn’t any sort of expert at tracking people. Whatever shoe prints had been on the soil every once in a while were definitely gone. Now the dried mud had given way to concrete and asphalt. He had good reason to think there wouldn’t be many footprints and broken branches here. How was he to continue now?