by Tyler Lahey
He dismounted frantically, searching the little arches of the field house for the containers of siphoned fuel. The others joined, matching his growing frenzy.
A woman came around the corner, wiping fish guts from her dry hands. She spoke softly and calmly, to Jaxton’s infuriation. “It’s gone.”
“Huh! Where’s the fucking gas!” Jaxton screeched, the veins on his neck bulging.
The woman kept wiping, intent on removing the eggs from under her fingernails. “He took it,” she said softly. Jaxton drew up on her, inches from her face, his eyes bulging. Liam raced forward.
“Terrence took the gasoline.” Bennett rounded the corner, his arms holding three rifles like kindling. Leeroy and Joseph flanked him, armed and with firebrands to illuminate the growing dark. The woman with fish guts frowned and opened her mouth but was shoved aside before she could speak.
“Bennett. What? Bennett we need the gas. Adira. The others. They’re in trouble.”
“We heard on our radio. The gas is gone. Terrence has it. I don’t know where he went. We’re coming with you.”
Jaxton ran his hands through his hair, “I’m going to kill him. I swear to God.”
Liam felt himself tugged outside the ring of bewildered people, noting with tenderness the way Harley tied her ponytail. She spoke softly, but urgently to him. “Jax is losing his mind. We need to get the group moving. Is there another way?”
Liam racked his mind, hearing the panic of Adira’s voice ringing in his ears. He couldn’t think.
Harley remained calm, and answered her own question. “The horses.”
Liam strode into the center of the group, once again the bear. “The gym! We take the horses!”
As one they were running, limbs pumping in frenzy. The panic was spreading. Their leader wasn’t himself. It made them all nervous. Jaxton would still lead the charge however, his jaw clicking and his breath visible in the brisk evening air.
…
Liam tightened his meaty thighs around the cantering beast. Its worn hooves clattered on the asphalt as he clung, petrified, to its thick brown mane in the night air. There had been no time to affix the saddles they had taken back. Harley held on for dear life behind him, bareback.
It was clear Jaxton had little idea how to ride a horse. Somehow, through his ferocity, the muscled animal was willed in the right direction. He rode bareback, thumping his heavy hiking boots into the animal’s ribcage so hard Liam winced. To steer, he yanked the mane to a chorus of protesting neighs and whineys. The other beasts seemed to take its lead, to follow where Jaxton’s horse went. Liam was sure Jaxton would ride the animal into the ground before giving up. Leeroy and Joseph shared another, a sandy colored roan that had never moved so fast in its entire life. Bennett rode the last.
The group clattered past the general store and skirted around a silent traffic jam of several modern vehicles. He could barely see. The moonlight offered a pale glimpse of their direction, though Liam couldn’t make out any detail in the forests to their flanks. Again and again, he forced himself to stop contemplating how big a meal the horses would be for the infected. They had had no choice.
Bearded, with spittle flying from his wretched grimace, Jaxton led them on a mad dash in the moonlight. The horses tore around another bend in the winding road. To their left, the steel factory sat inert and towering in the trees, a great metal affront to nature. Its mighty columns blocked out the stars above. It had already been twenty minutes since the radio call. Surely they were too late?
They went on, deeper into the backwoods, past cold gas stations and little shops that once promised psychic readings for a cool $5. Into the Cathedral. Liam felt his skin prickle. A lonely half-mile stretch of road flanked by densely packed great willow trees, its boughs having grown over the road in a hundred years. There was no moonlight inside. The trees swayed in the soft breeze, ominously crowding them from above. Liam could only urge his struggling mare forward to the sound of Jaxton’s exertions ahead. Then they were out, into a wave of colder, paler air.
There were the cars, and the ATV. A field of waist-high dead wheat grass extended across a lonely dirt road in front of them. Jaxton dismounted in the dark, alarmed to hear nothing but grass, swaying in the starlight. He mounted the minivan and screamed. “ADIRA!”
“Fuck,” Leeroy muttered at the noise. He adjusted his strap and brought his rifle to bear, beady eyes scanning the darkness. Harley shivered, so Liam went to her.
“Where are is the trailer park?”
Bennett indicated the field. “Just beyond that. It’s pretty high, past the waist in places. Where did she say they last were?”
“I have no idea. I couldn’t hear.” Jaxton paused, before launching himself into the tickling grass at the quick step.
“Someone needs to watch the horses.”
“I’ll stay. Harley, go with them please,” Liam whispered. He thought he saw Bennett staring him down, in a show of condescension that was visible even in the moonlight.
Harley clasped him close quickly, so small against his bear-like frame. She followed the others, disappearing into the grass. Liam frowned to himself. The horses were the biggest targets for any infected nearby. He would be damned if he put her in that position. And despite himself, he felt anger boiling- did they think he was being a coward?
A bird, floating lazily overheard, saw five black shadows parting the grass in tiny waves.
Jaxton felt his mind would burst as he stumbled through the grass. He could scarcely contemplate the failure that he feared lay before him. He had to find her. Fuck the others. If she was alive and they were dead, he would take that. He could see a tree-line in the distance, looming above the field. Picking up into a run, he nearly ran Duke over in the tall grass. Someone screamed, hoarse and bone-chilling… it resonated over the desolate plain.
Wilder hissed hysterically, fresh tears streaming down his pale face as he crouched. The grass was flattened in a small circle. There was Duke, shaking and trying to bury himself beneath the grass. There was Tessa, lying in a pool of dark wetness, with motionless eyes. Her neck was hacked to the spinal column, which was eerily shone white in the pale light. And there was Adira, her breast heaving and her lips trembling. Jaxton collapsed on top of her, and she wailed in a desperate thanksgiving.
The others broke into the clearing. Leeroy puked when he saw the dead girl. Joseph dropped to his knees, his breath ragged and short. He drew back his bowstring, so the razor-tipped arrowhead was quivering as it pointed at the tall stalks of grass. Harley stood at the edge, with blank eyes, gripping her shotgun.
Jaxton was crying too. “Where are they?” He scratched out through the tears, holding Adira to his chest.
Wilder could barely speak. He was hyperventilating. Jaxton cuffed him on the side of the head, hard. “Where?”
Wilder shrieked, his hands sticky with the dark liquid that pooled and made the matted grass spongy.
“Where’s Elvis?” Harley said.
They looked around. He was not in the circle. “Where is Elvis?!” She sounded off, more shrill this time.
Duke sat up. His rifle was still smoking in the chilly breeze. “He lead them away.”
“He ran?”
Adira spoke in muffled tones. “He sacrificed himself, so we could hide.”
“We need to watch the grass.” Bennett whispered. Joseph and Leeroy responded, weapons at the ready. Harley eyed Bennett up. She didn’t like his measured calm. Did he not see the girl lying in a pool of her own blood? Wilder pressed his scarlet hands to Tessa’s inert neck once more, as if to stop the bleeding.
“Elvis?”
They spun to see what Jaxton was looking at. There was a set of eyes, almost hidden among the reeds, shining at them. Someone was crouching not ten feet away, in the grass.
“KILL IT!” Wilder shrieked. Adira trembled, stammering over her words. Duke backpedaled, and ran.
Four guns were brought to bear. Jaxton rose, placing Adira behind him. “Elvis
?” He asked, his voice shaking as well.
Wilder snatched Duke’s rifle from the bed of grass. It was still hot. He groaned in terror and squeezed the trigger, snapping the brisk air with a sonic boom. Target hit. There was a scream that wailed and echoed across the field.
Bennett craned on his toes, scanning the high-grass. “Something’s coming. Five. Six. Eight. They’re coming, fast.”
“GO!” Adira screamed. They left Tessa to rot on a carpet of scarlet.
Chapter Seven
When she awoke from her nightmares, she was alone. Adira approached the metal vat of water they had ferried up from the river behind the school. Vigorously, compulsively, she washed herself. She didn’t like to be alone, in the dark room. Where was Jaxton?
She found them in the gymnasium. All of them.
Terrence was kneeling on the wooden floor with his hands tied; his bulky form stripped to the waist and bleeding. Wilder stood before him, his fists dripping. Everyone was watching. Fifty people cheering and jeering, an insufferable mob of curses, spittle, and fists. How quickly they abandoned their civility, Adira knew.
“You took the gasoline. Cause you’re a selfish fucking bastard. You killed Tessa. And you put the lives of four others at risk. One of whom, is still missing. If Elvis has died, you will die.” Jaxton paced before him, a police baton in his hand. “Again.”
Wilder unloaded his right fist into the swollen face before him. The crowd roared.
“He went behind my back! He went behind our backs!” Jaxton cried.
“Hit him again!” Harley cried. Wilder struck again, and the thunder that came after was deafening under those vaulted ceilings.
Adira spotted Liam and Joseph, speaking together at the edge of the proceedings. They alone looked disgusted.
Terrence spat blood. “I didn’t take the fucking gasoline.”
“Don’t fucking lie to me!” Jaxton roared and raised the baton. A second later a spray of blood spattered his own beard.
“I will not permit the breakdown of order here. Are you with me?” Jaxton asked the crowd, arms extended. They cheered their vicious assent.
Terrence remained squatting, his defiance evident. “I did not steal it.”
“If not you, then who?” Jaxton drew close to the mangled set of cheekbones.
“STOP this!” Adira yelled, her pulse hammering. “Enough! He has been punished enough. No one of you here killed Tessa. They did.”
Jaxton sputtered, but Adira continued, drawing the eyes of them all. “If there is any blame to be had, it is mine. I should not have taken us so late in the day.”
“Don’t waste your time defending him. And we need to find Elvis.” Harley spat.
“We must strike back at once!” Jaxton roared.
Adira stepped in front of her lover, and raising her hands, noticed they were still caked in red residue from the night prior. “Wait. Just fucking wait. We don’t want to rush into anything, especially while they might have Elvis, captured. They will cut us, and him, to pieces.”
“What are they?!” Someone shouted.
She trembled slightly, remembering the floating tendrils of greasy hair. “They were bitten, but they didn’t turn like the others…. I don’t think. They had crude weapons, and they tried to use them. They were from beyond the factory, in the backwoods.”
“We need to get together. Attack when they don’t expect it. Yes.” Wilder exclaimed, his eyes frantic as Jaxton nodded thoughtless approval.
“No we do not. I fucked this up. I think we should at least try to see if they can reason with us. I should try and communicate to them.” Adira didn’t want to go anywhere near the backwoods again, for as long as she lived. But she saw the way they were looking at her. She was the one to blame, the one who had failed the group. Only a remedy enacted by her would force a turn of opinion. But she found herself half-hoping someone would save her from the obligation.
“You would be killed. No. We send him. To test the waters.” Jaxton indicated the chained beast.
“I’m not doing anything you fuck-“ The baton snapped out like a viper.
“Terrence goes. And maybe Terrence dies. Now take him to the basement. Chain him there.”
Wilder and several others ushered the bleeding giant away.
“You need to think about what you’re doing, Jax,” Liam pleaded.
“Liam, I don’t want to hear it. There’s no place for doubt now.”
“Good for you Jax.” Harley nodded.
…
“What the fuck are we doing? Why did you take the gasoline?” Leeroy asked Bennett, as they stood afar from the others.
“I’m creating a little chaos,” Bennett snarled.
“Does anyone else know?”
Bennett shook his head. “They wouldn’t be willing to do what’s necessary.”
“How far are the police?”
Bennett smiled greedily. “One day. And his little kingdom will come crashing down.”
…
Harley slammed Liam against the concrete wall in the old classroom they had made their bedroom. She kissed him hungrily and pressed her voluptuous body against his. Without stealing her attention she undid his belt and shoved his camouflaged hunting pants off.
Biting his lip, she pressed him into the desk. Liam recoiled slightly. “Easy,” he whispered.
She shoved him harder and grinded against him as if he alone could cure her famine. She snatched his hand and made him touch her, as she reached down herself. Liam drew back, “easy,” he said, a little firmer.
She touched him more vigorously, not relenting a fraction. His hot skin incensed her further, and she tingled, sensing what she wanted was close at hand. Harley grabbed his lower neck, before placing her stomach against the desk. She looked back. “I want it. Now. Hurry.”
Liam struggled to adjust himself. His skin wasn’t flushed like hers. His spine didn’t tingle like hers. His mind was still processing other things. Her voice interrupted his thoughts. “NOW! C’mon! What the fuck are you doing!” She demanded, her pants hanging around her thighs.
Liam stepped back, feeling his blood boiling. “What is wrong with you!?”
“What’s wrong with you? You don’t want to have me?”
“Jesus fucking Christ we just watched a man get half beaten to death with his hands tied. Tessa died last night. Elvis is still missing. Did you forget all that?!”
“You two idiots have a real interesting conception of friendship. Elvis probably hates you. Fuck. Forget it Liam.” She raced to put her clothes back on. “And Terrence, he beat the shit out of you! Are you saying you didn’t enjoy seeing him hurt?”
“That’s not how my mind works, Harley. I don’t get off to beating a bound man.”
“Learn to love it. That’s as close you’re ever going to get to beating him.”
Liam recoiled, stung. “What the hell does that mean?”
“You know damn well, what that means.” The door slammed behind her. Liam sank down, his bulky frame hunkering over the miniature desk. He tried to exhale smoothly, but he couldn’t do it.
…
Her footsteps clacked loudly on the shiny tile floor. Adira held a torch aloft; it sent shadows dancing on the lockers around her. Two of the other girls followed closely, lest they be left behind in the blackness of the night.
“Adira.” Bennett emerged suddenly from the side door.
She nearly dropped the torch. “Jesus. You scared me.”
“Can we talk?”
Her eyes were openly suspicious, but they were unwavering. “Go ahead. Start cutting it up. I’ll meet up with you.” The two women scampered off into the kitchen, straight to the supply room where they kept all the canned food.
Bennett adjusted the straps on his backpack absent-mindedly.
“What is it, Bennett?”
Bennett nodded, laughing slightly. “Who would have thought, five months ago, this is how you’d greet me?”
Adira sighed. “Look. Things
are tense, alright? You can’t blame me if I’m a little on edge.”
He shot a glance behind him. “Well, I needed to ask you. Are you satisfied with the way things have turned out? I mean, with Jaxton and all. I just needed to hear it from you. We never get to talk anymore.”
She exhaled, exasperated. “This is what you wanted to talk to me about?”
“Of course it is. I was fine for a while, I mean fine. I wasn’t thinking about you. I was doing a pretty good job of avoiding you. Well, remember how we used to talk about how lucid our dreams could be?”
She regarded him softly, unsure whether she should walk away.
He stepped a bit closer, and the words came out softly. “I’ve been having these dreams. Not like that, don’t make that face at me. Just dreams with you in them. And it’s totally fucking my thing up. I mean, I wake up and its like we just spent hours together, and my brain can’t tell the difference. I’ve been dreading going to sleep. I never moved on like you did, you know?”
She couldn’t hate him. She didn’t hate him. “Bennett I’ll never dislike you. There’s gotta be a better way to say that…I mean, I still care about you. It’s not like you did anything wrong. But, things change. Things have changed. This whole thing, it’s changed you.”
Bennett retreated once more, his bright teeth flashing in amusement. He chuckled. “What do you mean?”
“You’ve forgotten empathy, you’re aggressive, and selfish. And you think it’s ok because everyone else is doing it too. And it’s not.”
His smiled vanished. “You owe me more than that.”
Adira stammered. Bennett cut her off. “I worshipped you for a while. You liked it, don’t deny it. I never treated you wrongly. I made mistakes but I was always there for you. Was I not?”
She could smell him, and she didn’t like it. It made her mind move more slowly.
“I’m still in love with you, Adira.”
“Stop it! Stop it. In love…Bennett we knew each other for what, two months?”
“I didn’t realize there was a time requirement,” he said softly.