We bury the bodies. Everyone helps with either shovel, spade, or their bare hands. These three dead men and women rest eternally by the small duck pond where the cause of all their pain and trouble lies at the bottom, half his face blown away courtesy of Suzanna.
After the dirt is packed and the crosses made from the ruined porch are planted, the crowd disperses.
Lilly and I don’t move for a minute. Me, because my head is somewhere else, deep in thought over Abby’s voice. I still can’t believe it. Was it really her? Lilly doesn’t move because of how troubled I am, I think.
I look at her, see a question on her lips.
“What is it?” I ask, beating her to the punch.
“Are you— Are you District, Jack?”
I snort with laughter, but there’s hardly any humor in the sound. “Me, District? You gotta be kidding. Did you not see what I did? Did you forget about all the Districters I killed today?”
She weighs her words carefully before speaking them. “I don’t know…the District is crazy enough to do something like that.”
I shake my head. “Ridiculous. I know you don’t really believe that.”
“Maybe I don’t.” Lilly leans closer. “But I’m confused, Jack. When Bandit escaped and knocked me down, I heard you talking on the radio. I heard the woman’s voice on the other end replying to you as if…as if she knew you.”
“She does.”
Lilly squints. “Who is she? Why is she District?”
“I—”
Suzanna’s voice cuts me off. We turn around to see her on the slanted steps, waving us closer. “Jack! Lilly! Come inside.”
I take this opportunity to put Lilly’s question on the back burner. I walk to the house, the Black Towers and Abby on my mind.
The truth is, I don’t know why Abby is in the District or how she’s even alive. After two years of not hearing her voice, of believing her to be dead, I’m still not sure if it was real, even if Lilly heard it, too.
22
The inside of the house has been hastily cleaned up. A wonderful smell drifts down the hallway. It’s the smell of cooking food.
Suzanna puts a hand on my shoulder, guides me inside. I have to duck so I don’t bang my head on the caved-in porch roof.
“You aren’t trying to leave us, are you?” David asks.
Lilly speaks over me. “No, why?”
“We’re having a feast. Broke into Bandit’s storeroom. There’s more food in there than a damn Walmart,” David answers.
“Come on,” Suzanna says.
She leads us to a large dining room. A table stretching the entire length of the house, I swear, sits in the middle. The carpet is a burnt orange and the wallpaper looks freshly and professionally hung. The others sit at this table.
Lilly and I take seats near the end, next to the one-armed man.
“Thank you,” he says to me, crying.
I shake my head. “It’s nothing. Don’t thank me.” And I’m not trying to sound like some cocky asshole who knows it was definitely something. Nothing like that.
“Yes, it is. It’s more than you know,” Bob, the one-armed man, says.
A little boy looks up at me with big eyes and says, “Thanks, mister.” The other children join in as the adults smile at them, proud of their manners. These are kids who have known nothing but the apocalypse. They’ve grown up in a world where there are no manners yet they somehow have them.
I smile back. “Really, it’s—”
Lilly hits me on the shoulder, like Abby would’ve, and says, “Just take the compliment, Jack.”
I nod. “It’s what my wife would’ve done,” I whisper.
“Is she your wife, mister?” the same boy asks.
Lilly and I chuckle awkwardly, but a throb of pain seizes my heart, a throb of pain for Darlene. “No,” Lilly says, then leans over to a teenaged girl and whispers all-too-loudly, “but he wishes.”
The girl giggles.
“What happened to your wife?” the boy asks.
“Now, Tommy, leave Mister Jack alone,” Bob says.
Tommy mutters an apology. By this time, the first rounds of food start arriving on the table, brought in by Suzanna, Marco, Malorie, and Daphne. There’s a pan of steaming bread, a dish of cheesy macaroni, canned vegetables with a spoon in them—green beans, corn, tomatoes. Powdered milk and glasses, water with ice cubes, and even a few dusty cans of Coca-Cola. It’s not much when you look at it, but as you bring the first forkful of macaroni up to your mouth and take a bite, you realize it’s everything you’ve ever wanted and more.
We eat and laugh and get to know each other.
The one armed man’s name is Robert, but he prefers Bob because, he says, “It makes me feel younger than I am.” He lost his arm in Iraq, long before the zombies came. He’s been living with this particular handicap for a good amount of time and now he hardly notices it, though he’ll more often than not feel that phantom arm like it’s still there. “Itches like crazy. That’s something, huh? An arm that isn’t there, itching.”
Suzanna was a librarian many years ago. She stayed in her branch for nearly six months after the government decided to tell us all to fuck off. They were doing a local food drive and the break room had a microwave and a good amount of bottled water. A backup generator, too. She survived more or less by herself, reading every book in the library once in that span of time. It was all she could do, she said, to take my mind away from the horrors happening all around us.
“Did you ever read The Deadslayer?” I ask.
She looks to be deep in thought. After a moment she nods. “Wasn’t a favorite of mine, but as far as zombie books go, it was fun.” She looks at me crookedly, a slight smile on her face. In those eyes, I can tell she knows. “Why?”
“Because I wrote it, along with a handful of other B-grade horror books,” I answer.
“Jack Jupiter,” she says softly. “I thought I knew that name.”
“Funny how things turn out, huh?” I say.
She laughs and like most laughs you hear nowadays, the sound is humorless.
Lilly tells her own sad stories. How she was taken from her hometown when it first started by the military, how their base was attacked, completely obliterated. She escaped. She doesn’t mention her pregnancy, and I’m glad. I don’t think I can handle listening to that story again. Besides, the youngins look to be deep inside of their own minds, but I remember being that age, remember playing grownups for fools, listening when I probably shouldn’t have been. I think Lilly senses this, too. Then again, these kids probably have their own messed up stories. I was a kid when the world had order. Things are different now. Much different.
After these stories are shared, a silence falls over the group. It’s a comfortable silence, the silence of friends who don’t need to fill the void with unnecessary conversation. And after all that has happened today, many of us probably don’t feel like talking much more.
We eat a dessert of green Jell-O. It doesn’t taste as sweet as I remember, but it hits the spot nonetheless. Everyone’s lips, teeth, and tongues turn green. The kids get a pretty big kick out of this. Seeing them laugh and point at each other breaks my heart. I think of Junior, I think of how he’d act and this thought stabs my heart with icicles of sadness. I’ll never be over losing them.
Lilly puts a hand on my forearm. It startles me out of my thoughts. “Jack, you look exhausted,” she says.
I nod. I am.
“Why don’t you get to bed?” Lilly asks.
The idea of sleeping here hasn’t really occurred to me. I know if I stay to long, I’ll get attached. Can’t let that happen.
Looming in the back of my mind are the Black Towers, and Abby trapped at the top of one of them, waiting for me to come rescue her. Still, much needs to be done before I can travel to Chicago. I have to change the tire on the Lincoln, have to load up on ammo, have to figure out a way to let Lilly know I’m leaving her behind on this farm with these nice people at a pla
ce where I believe she’ll be safe, where Bilbo can roam and eat and be taken care of without running, because a life on the run is no life at all.
Suzanna gets up, her chair’s legs brushing against the carpet. The rest follow suit. I begin to gather up the dishes and the crumpled napkins. Bob tells me to quit it, to go get some rest. “Don’t worry about the mess. We’ll handle it.”
“I don’t mind,” I say. “It’s the least I can do after you all cooked for me.”
Bob looks at me with serious intensity. It almost makes me shift my eyes elsewhere. “Mr. Jupiter,” he says and as he speaks he grabs my hand. His own hand is arthritic and gnarled and covered with rough calluses, looking much older than this man actually is. He squeezes. “I didn’t expect to sleep anywhere with a roof over my head that doesn’t leak. I didn’t expect to have covers or food besides old bread and rusty water. Look at me now—look at all of us. We’re sitting here like kings and queens, all because of you and your bravery.”
I nod, resisting the urge to say it wasn’t a big deal. Lilly grabs my other hand and says, “C’mon, hero. We need to talk.”
We leave the smiling faces of the freed people and go out to the living room. Once we’re out here, I can’t help but keep looking at the radio. Part of me wishes Abby would call my name again while the other part of me plainly sees that the radio has been unplugged and pushed up against the wall. No voices will be coming from that box, that’s for sure.
Lilly notices my eyes jumping back and forth from her to the small room. She snaps her fingers in front of my face, says, “Jack? Hello?”
“Sorry,” I say.
“Okay,” she says, grabbing my arm and dragging me out of the house. The door bangs behind us. The air is thick with the smell of smoke and burnt meat, but it’s a nice night: clear skies, bright moon, light breeze. I scan the horizon for the inevitable horde of zombies. There isn’t one.
Maybe, I’m thinking to myself, things are starting to go my way for once. I mean, it’s been two years without much luck. Is it too much to ask for a little? I’m overdue.
“You’re not leaving me behind,” Lilly says, again her voice snapping me back to the here and now. This is not what I expected her to say. “I’m not stupid, Jack. I know that’s what you intend to do.”
Her clairvoyance is a bit alarming. Is it that obvious?
I try to find the words to reply but can’t. I stand in front of Lilly and for the first time in a long time, I notice that my shoulders slump. Posture is everything, that’s what Norm always said. You stand up straight and you project this confidence about yourself. Right now, I pretty much project no confidence whatsoever, and I should, shouldn’t I? I just helped free a bunch of human lives, I helped take down a bunch of District scum, I’ve discovered that a long lost family member is still out there. So why do I feel so…bad?
It’s not that you only feel bad, Jack, my mind says, it’s that you’re also scared. Scared shitless. Abby is alive, she’s out there, but she’s in District territory. That means Norm can still be alive, too. What makes you feel bad is that you know Darlene and Junior and Carmen and Tim aren’t out there. They’re dead and gone and this is somehow a brutal reminder of that. Talk about pessimism.
Lilly snaps her fingers again. “Okay, next time you space out on me, Jack, I’m not snapping my fingers. I’m gonna smack you across the face instead.”
I nod. “Probably deserve it.”
We talk in hushed whispers. It’s a natural reaction to life on the road, staying quiet so zombies don’t hear you…all of that jazz. Really, staying quiet is the least of my worries.
“Oh, shut up,” Lilly says. She tilts her head back and takes a long, exasperated sigh. “Snap out of this funk and tell me what is going on.”
I inhale deeply. “Okay,” I say.
23
After I tell her why I don’t want her coming along, after I practically beg her to stay here, Lilly’s voice grows cold and much, much louder. “You’re not leaving me behind. I told you, I’m in this until the end. I hate the District as much as anyone.”
“Not as much as me,” I say.
“That may be true, but you’re not a special case. The District has destroyed countless families, countless homes. I’m sick of it. I don’t want to live in a world where I have to fear the zombies and the District.”
“Lilly,” I say, “it’s dangerous. I don’t know where I’m going. I don’t know what will come of this.”
“That’s the point,” she says. I’m surprised to see a smile on her lips. Then again, Lilly is pretty good at surprising me. “Danger is my middle name. Well, actually it’s Gertrude—”
“Gertrude?”
“Don’t ask,” Lilly says, putting up a hand. “Anyway, I’m coming with you. You need backup, and if you say no, I’m just going to follow you.”
The front door opens. I imagine it is normally soundless, but since Bandit rammed through it during his failed escape it practically screams. Suzanna comes out, a dish towel over her shoulder. For someone who has been forced to manual labor and running from zombies for however long, she seems to be adjusting quite well.
“Everything okay?” she asks.
I nod and say yes, but Lilly cuts me off as she’s so apt to do and says, “No. No, it’s not.”
Suzanna furrows her brow and tilts her head. “What’s wrong?”
“Jack here thinks he can take on the entire District by himself,” Lilly answers.
Sudden anger flares inside of me. “Lilly,” I say, feeling betrayed.
“Oh, stop it, Jack. We can trust her. We saw her put a bullet in Bandit’s head.”
“Yes, you can trust me. What is she talking about, Mr. Jupiter?” Suzanna asks me. She crosses her arms and looks at me in a very motherly way despite only being about a decade or so older.
“It’s nothing, really,” I say. “And just call me Jack, please.”
Lilly sighs. “You’re unbelievable, Jack.”
Suzanna walks down the steps and comes toward us. She takes the dish towel off of her shoulder and leaves it on the railing. “You can talk to me, Jack,” she says. “I know more about the District than I ever wanted to. Working here for all this time has done that for me.” She puts her arm around my shoulders. In a way, she reminds me of Eve, Darlene’s mother. Even up until the cancer took her, Eve had all the traits of a true leader, just as Suzanna does. She makes me feel welcome, comfortable. “Let’s take a walk and discuss what’s troubling you.”
And what am I to do? Refuse her, run away? No, I can’t do that. As much as I don’t want to discuss these things with Suzanna—or anyone for that matter—I do realize that her knowledge may help me on my journey.
She leads me to the duck pond. The water is smooth, calm, and dark. The moon reflects off of its surface. Somewhere at the bottom, Bandit’s body rots. He won’t be coming back as a zombie, not after the shots that took him to his death landed. The image of his eviscerated face jumps into my mind. A chilling voice says That could be you, Jack…if you don’t listen, if you don’t plan this right.
I shake my head slightly in an attempt to make the voice go away. It doesn’t. That voice is always there, always will be. It’s the voice of doubt and fear, one that has grown from a barely audible whisper into a yell.
“We heard a voice over the radio right when Bandit ran out of the house,” Lilly says.
Suzanna nods with sagely wisdom. She no longer has her arm around my shoulders; now her hands are buried deep in the pockets of her borrowed pants.
“Jack knew the voice. It’s one of his old friends from Haven,” Lilly says.
Suzanna pauses in her steps and looks at me curiously. “Haven?” she says.
I close my eyes and slowly nod.
“Horrific thing that happened there,” Suzanna says. “But let’s not harp on the past. I’ll tell you what your friend is doing with the District. You may not believe me, you may not think it’s the most logical answer, but I will tell
you anyway.”
24
The door opens back at the house, the hinges screeching. We all turn to look and there’s Marco coming out on the porch with his rifle in hand.
“What’s up?” Suzanna calls to him.
“Everyone’s hitting the hay. I volunteered to take first watch,” Marco calls back.
Suzanna wears a motherly smile on her face. She puts her hand up and says, “Nonsense, Marco. You get yourself to bed. I’ll keep watch.” Marco opens his mouth to protest, but Suzanna continues on. “If anything happens, I’ll wake you.”
Marco’s mouth closes. “Of course, ma’am,” he says after a moment. Then he’s mumbling, barely audible, “A bed. Man, an actual bed.”
The door opens again and eases closed.
Suzanna turns back to Lilly and I. “I have witnessed terrible things firsthand, as I’m sure we all have. But I’ve also witnessed things not even I believe.”
“Like what?” Lilly asks.
“In a moment, Lilly,” Suzanna says. “Come, let us go to a place more private.”
She leads us to the barn. In the moonlight, the sludge-like blood from the zombies still stains the grass in patches. The air still smells like burnt meat and I imagine it will for a long time. Of all the private places on this farm, I did not think the barn would be near the top of the list, especially with Suzanna’s history. She pulls up two overturned buckets for Lilly and I to sit on and then plops down herself on stacked bags of feed or fertilizer. An array of farming equipment hovers over her head—hoes, rakes, spades, all of which would be decent weapons for when the ammunition runs out.
The inside of the barn does not smell pleasant. It is a sickening sweet mixture of hay, the outdoors, and the dead. Not to mention the stink coming from the cell Suzanna and the rest of her people came from. They didn’t exactly have plumbing in there.
Suzanna sighs longingly. Lilly and I exchange a glance. Worry overtakes me. Have we misjudged this woman? Has being locked in here, beaten by District soldiers, driven her mad? I sure hope not, but I clutch my rifle a little closer to my side, ready to bring it up at a moment’s notice. It’s now that I notice just how bare my back feels without my sword and sheath attached to it. My cloak is inside, though, that might be what’s doing it. Also, it’s not a particularly warm night despite the smoldering ashes of the cremation fire nearby.
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