Gordon stood there for a moment, completely nonplussed. What did they mean what?
“Let me in.” he said and looked over his shoulder. The old woman was still a long way off but she kept coming, slow and steady like the ticking of a clock.
“What’s the password?” one of them said and took a swig from the bottle.
“I don’t know, I just got here.” Gordon said. “Let me in, there’s zombies out here.”
“No password, no entry.” The first guard said.
“I live here.” Gordon was starting to get pissed. “My father owns the biggest house in the Landing. I’m a Lowery, open the damn gate.”
“oooooowwwww.” The second one said. “Well ain’t you special. Take a hike punk, before I call up some more of the undead to chase you off. Unless you got something to trade, something we want, we ain’t taking in any freeloaders.”
Gordon couldn’t believe it. He had come all this way only to find out some raiders had taken over. The zombie with the dragging leg was closing in, he could hear her scrapping along the cobblestones.
“Wait a minute.” the first guard said. “You say your name is Lowery? You related to Richard Lowery?”
“He’s my cousin.” Gordon said, grasping at hope. “We’re really close, best friends even. He’s here? He’ll want to see me.”
“Yeah, he’s here.” the first guard said. “He kind of runs the place. I don’t remember him mentioning you, though. You sure you’re not just making things up? Are you sure you’re not somebody’s husband come back to get their wife or daughter or something?”
The man wavered on his feet and passed the bottle back to his buddy as Gordon shook the bars. The woman was getting closer.
“Do I look old enough to have a kid or even be married?” he nearly shouted. “Let me in, I’m Gordon Lowery! I live here!”
“Okay, okay, don’t get all excited.” the man said and weaved his way over.
He was just a kid, not more than sixteen or seventeen. He fumbled the keys and the woman started to keen, she could smell the blood dripping from Gordons hand.
“Oh shut up.” the second guard said and shoved his rifle through the bars and pulled the trigger as fast as he could.
He emptied the magazine as Gordon ducked for cover and the other guard covered his ears.
“Dammit, Flame! Quit wasting ammo and let me know before you go shooting.” the first guard said, mumbled under his breath and finally found the right key.
The woman was still coming. If any of the thirty bullets hit her, she wasn’t bothered by them. The bone of her broken leg drug on the stones, the skin and muscle long since worn away. It made a noise like fingernails on chalkboard and Gordon wanted to scream at the man to hurry up but was afraid to distract him. The instant he turned the key and loosed the lock from the chain, Gordon shoved and sprang inside. Both men fell and the magazine he’d been trying to reload bounced away in the dark. Gordon shoved the gate closed just as the gray-haired thing slammed into it and reached for them with searching fingers and gnashing teeth. He breathed a sigh of relief and the fear flooded out of him. He was safe. This was a scenario he was used to from the Park. Reaching arms, hungry faces and a spear in his hands. He grabbed the guard’s AR-15 off the ground and thrust the bayonet into her belly, slicing all the way to the breastbone. Rancid coils of guts spilled out and the men scuttled away to get out of the slop zone.
“Gross. Why’d you do that” one of them said, gagging on the smell.
The smell didn’t bother Gordon, he had gotten used to it from all the hours he’d spent at the gate doing this very thing. The woman started to shriek at him so he thrust the blade into her voice box and twisted. The snapping sounds of cartilage was louder than the splashing of fresh, black blood and she was quiet. He was almost enjoying himself, paying her back for all the fear her kind had caused him over the last few days. He jabbed out her eyes and they ran down her withered, old cheeks.
“You’re sick, man. Why don’t you just kill it?”
“If you knew how to shoot, she’d be dead a hundred yards from here.” Gordon replied and tossed him the gun. He was feeling more like his old self than he had in months. He was home, he was safe and his family was in charge.
“Where’s Richard?”
“Up at headquarters.” the first guard said then added, a little unsure of himself as he held out his hand. “Uh, they call me Smoke and that’s Flame. Say, you won’t tell him about this will you? We were just goofing, you know. We wouldn’t have left you out there.”
Gordon let the boy’s hand hang in the air, refusing to shake it. A little trick he’d seen his dad do on occasion. It set the mood and let them know who was in charge.
“Yeah.” the second man said. “We didn’t know you were family. Honest. We don’t want trouble with him.”
Smoke let his hand drop and they both tried to sober up. Gordon wondered why they were afraid of Richard. He was a bully; he might dump your lunch tray at school but these guys seemed genuinely afraid of him. Like maybe he would do something a little more than embarrass you in front of your classmates.
“I’ll keep quiet.” Gordon said. “But you owe me. You understand? You owe me.”
They both nodded and apologized again as he turned and walked off, wondering what the heck had just happened.
Gordon considered things as he made the long trek across the over grown golf course back to his house. Those two idiots at the back gate had nearly let a zombie inside. If he would have been on guard duty, he never would have opened the gate until it was dead. Hell, they didn’t even check him for bites. He needed to have a talk with Richard. The undead were stacking up at the front gate and pretty soon, they’d be able to climb on each other and make it over the top. Mr. High and Mighty was always going on about that, said that’s why they had to keep the numbers down. Gordon hadn’t minded that job, though. He liked to see how many different ways he could kill them and see how bad he could butcher them before they finally collapsed. More than once he’d pictured Cody or Donny’s face when he stabbed them with a pitchfork, twisted the tines and pulled ropes of guts out to spill on the ground.
He stood outside the house and watched from the darkness for a long time, his hunger and fear forgotten. It was lit up bright, the music was blasting and all he saw was teenagers drinking and smoking. No adults at all and no one wore armor. They had on their hockey jerseys or wore designer clothes. It was a party, just like any other party before the fall except this one was a little wilder, a little louder and a little meaner.
Gordon watched through the giant windows, not feeling the cold. He had been alone for weeks when he was trapped in the old military surplus store. He might as well have been alone in the Park since everyone hated him. He didn’t want to repeat the same mistakes and if he wasn’t careful, Richard would be making him the butt of his jokes again. Most of the kids looked older than him, they were seniors in high school and college kids but they looked soft. He hated the thought of it but the stupid brats in the park could have whooped any of their asses. They’d been living it up and partying since the outbreak and he would bet they’d never known a moment of discomfort. They had everything he had wanted all along but now he saw. Now he realized it made them weak. He couldn’t be seen as weak, he wouldn’t become a servant to them. He was a Lowery and his rightful place was next to Richard. They would share power like their fathers had. They must never know he’d been a scared little boy, jumping at every noise and so afraid he’d pissed his pants. They could never know how he’d been run out the park, blubbering and crying and afraid.
His uncles’ place was a mirror image of theirs, the two brothers had them built at the same time to the same specs, each one dwarfing the other million-dollar homes. They were ostentatious and larger than life, much like their owners.
He didn’t really care much for his cousin. They played together as kids but Richard was three years older. That was a lot when they reached high school. Gordon was still playing with act
ion figures while Richard was sleeping with every girl that would let him. And some that wouldn’t, if rumors were true.
Their fathers were brothers, heirs to a large financial portfolio that had its beginnings back in the prohibition era. Their grandfather, Gordons great grand dad, had learned quickly that paying the right men the right bribe would make sure his loads of booze coming out of Canada didn’t get intercepted. He was one of Al Capones suppliers and the money pile kept growing and growing. By the time President Roosevelt ended prohibition in 1933, Ezra Lowery had already moved his money over into real estate. He snapped up properties cheap during the great depression and after the War, the Lowery Family became one of the richest in Southern Minnesota.
His and Richards step mothers were both trophy wives, more than twenty years younger than their husbands. The brothers were in constant competition and never let a chance go by to one up each other. Gordon’s mom had passed away under suspicious circumstances but the grand jury could find no wrong doings on his dads’ part and he was remarried six months later. Richards’ dad, not to be outdone, had divorced his wife and his shrewd lawyers had made sure she didn’t get a dime. His new mom was twenty-two, only a few years older than him. The new wives were gold diggers who knew their place and knew how to keep the men happy. They had won the lottery; they knew it and would do whatever it took to stay in their men’s good graces. In return, they had huge allowances and spent their days shopping and looking down their noses at the working class. The brothers had been born into money and grew that money by buying and selling companies, real estate developments and stock trading. They were ridiculously wealthy, and their ventures had increased their wealth to the point that none of their children would ever have to lift a finger to make ends meet.
Richard was a jock and a bully. He was famous for his parties and popular with the girls. He was the goalie on his high school hockey team and a minor celebrity in the Minnesota town where he played as well as the star pitcher on the baseball team. Tall with a bodybuilder’s physique, rumors of illegal steroid use lingered around him but were ignored by coaches and faculty. He’d taken them to State three years in a row.
He had a reputation as a trouble maker and was always in some predicament with the law. Poaching, drag racing the Dodge Hellcat he’d received on his eighteenth birthday, possession of stolen goods, drug trafficking and the list went on. The rules didn’t apply to him and Daddy’s money always made the problems go away, including two different underage girls who claimed Richard was the father of their children. The claims were silenced when the large checks cleared the bank and Richard carried on. He was invincible on the streets and a hero on the ice. Before the outbreak, he’d been courted by all of the prestigious colleges, playing them against one another to see who promised the largest compensations if he blessed them with his athletic prowess.
Gordon stripped out of the colorful ski jacket he’d scrounged, tossed it aside and adjusted his armor. His jeans were ripped from the possum and his bloody hand was wrapped in a rag. His hair was a lot longer than it had been the last time he’d seen Richard and he was a lot thinner. Working like a slave at the Park had toned him and put on muscle. He’d never appreciated it before; he was always the laziest and the slowest and the weakest of the kids but here it was different. From the looks of things, they’d been drunk and stoned since day one. They looked sloppy and soft. He’d bet money they’d never been outside the wall. Here he could be a bad ass. He adjusted the gun in his belt as he considered the story he would tell.
36
Gordon
Gordon found his cousin Richard sitting under an outdoor propane heater by a covered swimming pool, a bottle of Jack Daniels in one hand and his other swatted at the ass of a girl who danced drunkenly around him. A blue haired girl sat on a stool beside him. Tattoos covered nearly every inch of her skin and she had oversized gauges that formed large holes in the lower earlobes. She was tattooing a hockey mask with a joint in its mouth on Richards’ heavily muscled exposed chest.
Richard took a long swig of Jack and looked up at the newcomer. He spit liquor and laughed as he recognized the disheveled boy standing in front of him. “Gordy!” Richard started making oinking sounds. The crowd gathered around the pool laughed with him as Gordon’s face tightened.
Gordon hated that nickname. It came from some stupid kids’ movie Richard had watched too many times about a talking pig. Gordon was heavy when he was younger and Richard would oink every time he saw him. He’d terrorized Gordon and his other cousins whenever they were together.
Gordon wasn’t laughing along like he usually did and Richard took a long hard look at him. He was dirty, trail worn and wearing plastic armor that had seen some real-world abuse. A bloody rag was wrapped around his hand and he was lean and muscled. He wasn’t chubby Gordy anymore. Not a little piggy. In fact, he looked a little intimidating.
“Take a break Tasha,” he told the tattooed girl, pushed her away and stood.
“Sasha,” she corrected him. Richard waved her off, threw his arm around Gordon and offered him the bottle. He motioned to a dreadlocked guy to turn the music down.
Gordon took it, pulled a long swig and felt the burn as the liquor made its way to his stomach.
“You look like hell, man.” Richard said. “Welcome home, cuz.”
The drunken teens wandered outside to see what was going on then turned their attention to Richard.
“Everybody, this is my cousin Gordon.” Richard said. “We thought he was lost but now he’s found.”
Cheers went up and one drunk girl flashed her chest at him. Catcalls and laughter echoed in the night as he was welcomed by the group.
He was introduced to the dozen or so guys and the four girls that were at the party. They had ridiculous names like Jester, Maggot, Trish the Fish, Pole, Gargoyle that Gordon didn’t try to make sense of. The ATV rider he’d seen from the front entrance and the girl with him were Skull and Squirrel. Cause she’s nuts, Richard had whispered. They were all either high or drunk or a combination of both.
“You’ll meet the others later.” Richard said. “The light weights are already passed out.”
Moaning drew Gordon’s attention to the covered swimming pool.
“What’s with that?” he asked and Richard made a flourish with his hands then hit the remote to retract the cover.
Wandering around the bottom of the dry pool were four of the undead. Only one of them could stand, the others were mangled and torn so badly they could only crawl and snarl at the teens gathered around the rim above them. Empty liquor bottles and cigarette butts littered the bottom of the pool. Raucous laughter erupted as the guy called Gargoyle stepped to the end of the diving board, unzipped his fly and whizzed a golden arc on the zombies.
“Battle trophies.” Richard said and as the music cranked back up he pulled Gordon away from the crowd. He was stumbling drunk and kept his arm around his shoulder for balance and support.
“Where you been man? Honestly, I hadn’t given you much thought, figured you were like the rest of them outside the gate, just moaning and wandering around looking for a handout.” he laughed at his own joke.
Gordon told his story leaving out the bad parts, exaggerating the good parts and made himself out to be a double-crossed hero. A handful of the more sober teens came over to listen, Gordon was the first outsider they’d met. As it turned out, the fires and lights weren’t a beacon to help others, to show them a safe haven. They were just burning stuff and as far as the lights, how were they supposed to party without lights? As they listened and passed around a bottle, he told them how he had saved a bunch of kids from a horde. He led them out of town, fighting the undead the whole way and found them a sanctuary at the animal park
“I lost a lot of them.” Gordon said with feigned remorse, his voice dropping so they had to lean in to listen. “It got real bloody and I couldn’t save them all.”
There were murmurs of approval and they raised toasts to him.
<
br /> “I showed them how to live.” he continued. “I had them start training the animals but one of them got jealous. A punk named Cody. White trash. I had a lion who was a savage, a huge beast, but he poisoned him. Killed him because he wanted my girl.”
Gordon went on to describe the battle that ensued where they turned their animals loose on him and without his Lion, he had no choice but to flee. He told them about Harper and the other girls and the teens were really interested in them.
“We should go get them.” somebody said. “Get Gordon’s girl back and the rest of them, too. Teach that jerk Cody a lesson.”
“They sound a little young.” Gargoyle said.
“Old enough to bleed, old enough to breed.” Maggot said and everyone snickered.
Gordon heaped praise on Richard for all he had accomplished and spread the compliments around to all the others. As he spun his tale and listened to their responses, he realized they had been drunk and stoned since the outbreak. They never sobered up, they were aimless and didn’t have any plans for the future. They were partying at the end of the world and from everything he’d learned during his time at the park, he knew it couldn’t last. If this bastion of hope were to survive, there would have to be some changes made. The way they looked at him, with respect and a little bit of awe, made him start thinking he could be their leader. First, he had to get Harper. She’d see he was right and she could help him turn this community into something better, not just a drunken free for all quickly running out of supplies. It could be a great place if he was in charge.
Everyone nodded along to the story, interrupting to raise drinks to Gordon or spit curses at the ones who had wronged one of their own.
“Somebody needs to teach those kids a lesson.” Richard said as he wound up the tale of how he fought his way north to find them. “We could really use some new girls. If you haven’t noticed, we have a serious shortage of female companionship. We could use some fresh meat around here for me and the boys if you know what I mean. Tell me more about this harem that bastard Cody is trying to keep all to himself.”
The Feral Children [A Zombie Road Tale] Box Set | Books 1-3 Page 22