This Dark Earth

by John Hornor Jacobs

  “Has Wallis entrusted you with this mission? You, a fourteen-year-old boy?”

  “Yes.”

  “You’re a leader. Get used to it. Acting like you’re not is just lying to yourself and can hurt us all.”

  His hand rests on my shoulder. He squeezes and I can feel the warmth and pressure, even through the armor.

  “You’re important to us. To everybody here. You came up with the idea for the bridge. You came up with the idea of the murderholes. The chain-link fences. You’re a leader. We need you.” He pauses, turns away from the river, and leans back against the rail. “I came to find you last night, to talk. And I saw.”

  He saw. He knows what I am. A murderer.

  “I don’t know what he said to deserve it. Or if he did. I don’t know anything. I don’t even know what I saw.” He turns and looks at me, and I’ve never really looked at him this closely. He’s got green flecks in his eyes. He’s big, but I’m bigger now, I think. I remember when he let me out of the safe, all the times he’s made me laugh. All the times when he’s thought of me when Mom didn’t, brought me gifts, protected me.

  “This is a different world, Gus. And the fact that you did what you did . . . well, I’m going to keep it between us. It’s a hard life you have to lead, and I think that all this headknocking and the undead, it can make you . . . strange. But you shouldn’t have done it.” He wipes his eyes, and I can’t tell if it’s the smoke from the curing fish or real tears. Probably real tears. But you never know with Knock-Out. He’s harder than all of us, I think. But he’s softer too.

  “And you can never do it again. If I ever discover that you have—” He stands up straight and rests his hands on his hammer. “I’m gonna tell you one last thing you already know. Or you better know. Human life is precious and it should be protected at all costs. The biggest crime is taking another human life. I’ll say it again: life is precious. It should never be wasted. Never be thrown away.”

  That’s what I did when I murdered Frazier. I threw his life away.

  “I need you to promise me you’ll never take another life. Ever.”

  The silence draws out and I can hear the moans coming from the Wall. The seagulls bank and wheel and caw in the sky. I look at Knock-Out. He’s standing there, hand on his headknocker, bristling with hair.

  “I can’t do that.”

  He looks stunned. His mouth opens as if to say something and then he closes it.

  “I’m riding south to try to stop the slavers. You think I might not have to kill some? No. If I’m supposed to be a leader, I can’t promise you not to kill. But I can promise you this: I’ll never kill again in anger.” I shrug. It’s the best I can offer him. There’s too much at stake.

  He swallows, looks hurt. I can’t blame him. He’s got a murderer for a step-son, and he’s got to keep that secret if he wants to stay with Mom. Everything is different from the television world we used to have.

  “Okay. If that’s all you can promise, I’ll take it.” He slumps a little then. “That’s all.” He coughs again, but it’s more of a nervous cough. “Know that your mother and I love you.”

  He slaps my shoulder, pulls me into a hug that lasts for a long time, and then walks away. I go to the rail, feeling like I’m gonna puke, and look out over the water, away into the trees on the far shore. Then, after I’ve controlled myself, I turn and get harnessed to rappel down to the dock.

  For an hour or so, Joblo pilots us downstream toward the Ozark Game & Fish boat ramp. I haven’t ridden on a boat in years, even though I helped oversee getting the boat dock fixed to the main downstream pylon. My idea, actually.

  It’s a little frightening, looking into the brown water, not knowing what could be under the surface.

  The bikes wobble and shake when Joblo runs the party barge right up on the concrete. The forest has worked itself up to the edges of the pavement and the trees hang over the road.

  “Gonna have to send a team down here to clear this brush. It’s the only boat ramp within twenty miles.” He spits and shakes his head, moving to the front of the barge. He unlatches the aluminum gate at the front of the boat and begins pulling planks of wood.

  I go over to him.

  “Had an idea on the way down here. Go into town, find some delivery trucks, you could probably rig up an elevator to the boat dock with their rear platform lift motors. If you had some heavy-duty batteries being constantly charged from a water genny. Like we talked about, with a prop. Run the genny into the batteries and from there into a breaker or something. To lights, to the winches on the elevator.”

  “Hmm. Might work, but it depends on the amperage we get out of the prop gennies . . . a regulator on the charger . . . hmm . . . It’s worth a try.” He shakes my hand. “Be careful out there.”

  “I will.”

  “See you in a day or two. You best be getting on.”

  “Right.” I turn, stop, look back. “Before the elevator, you might want to think about just a good old zip-line, for a quick exit.”

  “Why would we need a quick exit?”

  I shrug. If he can’t see it, he’s a moron.

  Once we start the motorcycles, there’s no way to hear anything except your own thoughts. The noise means we have to get moving. It’s important we get to the major highways quickly, so we’ll have some room to move. Everything will be over real quick if we hit a cluster of zeds on these back roads.

  When you start making noise, it’s real easy to find yourself surrounded.

  We head east, to Ozark, Arkansas, cross the bridge there and hit I-40. Through the river valley, wreathed in forests, the medians now full scrub-brush on the smaller highways. Trees and forest growth push in tight to the asphalt on the back roads. Taking it easy until Clarksville, where we start picking up some stragglers. They are rising from piles on the ground, shrugging off whatever sleepiness makes them quiet and inactive. Not a lot, maybe twenty or thirty, doing their damnedest to keep up. We roll slow between the derelict cars. Jasper’s got a cooler bungied to the rear of his bike, and it’s filled with food and energy drinks and coffee. Keb’s toting two big forty-gallon containers of extra gas. I’ve got some extra ammo, the flare gun, and, well . . . me.

  I can see them snorting something when we take breaks. I’m not an idiot. I know what they’re doing. Looks like the murderhole finally turned up the goods. Frazier would have been happy.

  Gonna have to deal with it.

  By the time we hit Fort Smith, there’s at least a hundred zombies on our tail. We’re still rolling slow.

  It’s hard, just riding at barely more than a trot. Every instinct in you screams for you to gun it, to get out of there. Because being the head of an undead parade can end only one way, really, unless you’re lucky.

  Your ears get used to the constant, massive drone of the bikes and the ruckus of the dead, and you just steer. But it’s tiring. Going slow. Your legs are always out, balancing.

  Keb’s got this uncanny ability to barely roll and doesn’t have to put out his feet, but Jasper and I do.

  When the sun goes down, we pull ahead before the light totally dies and eat some and talk for just a few minutes before the zeds catch up.

  “We’ve got to ride straight through until morning, guys.” I shake open the map Wallis gave me. “It’s gonna take us days for the whole ride. Wallis wants us to take the state highways to Hot Springs and from there east to I-30 and then south all the way to bypass Little Rock. He thinks we’ll run into too many zeds there.” I wave my hand at the trees lining the highways and the brush growing in cracks on the asphalt. “But I say we dump these revs, haul ass east on I-40 to Conway and Little Rock, pick up a few thousand, and then head south. That might take two days, no sleep. How much of the cocaine do you have?”

  Jasper’s eyes go wide and Keb grins. “Oh, the little prince wants to get his snoot full? Is that right?”

  “How much?”

  Keb raises his shoulders and opens his hands. “No clue, Lil P. Mebbe co
upla eight balls. Maybe a little more.”

  “Give it to me.”

  “Not just no, but hell no. Ain’t giving you shit.”

  “I promise you’ll get it back.”

  He lids his eyes.

  “I’m not fucking around, Keb. I’m in charge. Give it to me.”

  Slowly, he pulls out a cellophane bag rimed in white and hands it over to me. It doesn’t seem to be very much at all.

  “Shit, Prince, be careful with the blow, man! Wrap it up! Don’t hold it like that.”

  He thinks I’m gonna dump it. I laugh, and he gives me a strange look.

  “Don’t worry, Keb, we need this. If we ration it out, it’ll keep us awake, able to do this right. This stuff will save everybody.”

  Jasper laughs. “Just say yes to drugs.”

  “Yes,” Keb says. “Lemme have a little hit before we get started again.”

  I check my watch. It’s seven and the sun is totally gone now. The zeds are getting closer.

  “No. But at ten, I’ll let you have some.”

  “Fuck, Lil P, just a taste?”

  “At ten.”

  I see him tense for a moment. Maybe he’s thinking about chucking me over a bridge. But he won’t. Jasper and Keb might need me to survive, but without me there’d be no going home to Bridge City. He curses and stomps off to his bike.

  We dump the zeds and roll. Fast.

  At ten, we all do lines off the upturned mirror of Keb’s motorcycle. My heart tries to beat its way out of my rib cage, and I feel like one gigantic erection, pulsing and needing somewhere to go. I drink water and snort the cocaine deeper into my sinuses.

  Keb’s laughing when the cluster lurches out of the dark into the headlights. I rip the hatchets off my chest and jump into the middle of the damily to start headknocking before I realize I don’t have on my helmet. It’s hooked on the handlebars of my bike.

  Not much I can do now. I put down one, smashing his face deep into his cranium, sending goo flying. I hear Jasper yelling. Keb is still wrapping up the cocaine bag.

  “Keb, goddamn it! There’s revs!” Jasper bellows.

  I laugh and whip around, knock away the arms of a couple more shamblers, and put the two hatchets deep into their skulls. I’ve been headknocking at the Wall every day for the last three years. If I know anything, it’s how to crush skulls.

  Getting the hatchets out is a tougher proposition, so I just let them fall buried in the shamblers’ craniums and pull a kabob skewer out of my sleeve. I plant it deep in a woman’s eye socket, kick out with my big treaded boots, and knock down her buddy, a stringy moaner missing an arm. His one good arm leaves a slime trail down my Kevlar leggings, and I stomp, hard, on his skull, sending its contents spurting through ruptured bone and decayed skin.

  I pull the dual .9mms, turn, and step forward to meet a dead girl, semifresh, no more than two months shambling. I stick the barrel right in her mouth, midmoan. Her hair jumps a little when I pull the trigger, and smoke pours out of her mouth as she falls.

  I really like Joblo’s armor improvements.

  My ears are ringing from the gunshot. When the ringing goes away, I hear cicadas whirring in the trees at the interstate’s edge. Then, in the distance, a moan.

  “Damn, Lil P, I ain’t seen nothing like that shit in . . . well . . . a long-ass time, yo.” He laughs, throwing his head back far enough for me to see silver glinting in his mouth, even in the glare of the bike headlights. “You’re like a little Bruce Lee or sumpin’.”

  Japser pats me on the shoulder.

  “Nice work, Gus. You’re getting really good at that. They had you surrounded.”

  Blushing, I think. It might be the cocaine, though. I grab my hatchets, wipe them off on the semifreshie’s clothes. I leave the skewer. I’ve got lots more.

  The moaning from the side of the road is getting louder, the zed drawn by the gunshot. Maybe the light from the bikes too.

  We do one more line each, and I take back the cocaine. It’s not like I could kick his ass or anything, but Keb doesn’t say anything or argue about not holding the drugs.

  The motorcycles roar and we’re back rolling, in the dark, toward half a million undead.

  By dawn, we’ve hit Little Rock. The shamblers, at least the ones caught in our headlights, are coming out of the brush, rolling down inclines and shuffling up exit ramps. We’re going five miles an hour. A fast jog, really. When they get in front of us, we either run the bikes right at them, knocking them silly with the ironwork crossbars, or we try to avoid them. It’s not too hard, but it’s getting harder with every mile we get into the city.

  One manages to grab part of Jasper’s chassis and we drag it a couple of hundred feet, leaving a black skid mark on the pavement.

  It’s the clusters of cars blocking the interstate that cause real problems. We have to move the bikes into the median or on the shoulder to get around them.

  Another surprises Jasper from behind an SUV. Grabs his arm. Yanks it to his mouth and starts gnawing, but Jasper’s gear means the shambler is losing teeth rather than enjoying dinner.

  If there weren’t, oh, maybe a thousand zombies tottering behind us, I’d find it funny, and the cocaine is wearing off. Jasper pulls the zombie close and smashes his fist into its face. It doesn’t let go. He pulls out his headknocker, a big stake hammer, and pops it a good one between the eyes. It falls away. Probably dead, but we don’t get off the bikes to check. There’s a damily working its way up the shoulder toward us, too close. A woman and two little boys. Another woman trailing behind.

  We roll.

  The moans are really loud now. I can hear them over the thunder of the bikes.

  I have no memory of the layout of Little Rock from when I was a boy. Maybe I’ve been trying to forget. But the sun rises, and I can see we’re among buildings. Shamblers are everywhere, coming for us.

  I hold up my hand to Jasper and Keb, and we stop for a moment but keep the bikes running. I turn to look behind us.

  A wall. An ocean. A wave. Coming. Moaning.

  Thousands. Maybe more.

  We roll up a rise to an overpass and a zombie falls from above, a leaper, and lands in front of us, a sack of goo exploding into a hundred streamers across the pavement. I have a fleeting memory of stomping on ketchup packets when I was a kid.

  The leaper zed tries to rise even after impact. Jasper runs over him with his bike and stops, keeping him pinned.

  I stop, turn around, and check on Keb. He’s shaking his head, looking at the road behind us. From here we can see the extent of the mob. The horde.

  This must be what rock stars felt like.

  Keb, Jasper, and I look at each other and Keb flips up his visor. I follow suit.

  “Holy fuck, Lil P.” He shakes his head. “It’s unbelievable.”

  “Believe it.”

  We sit there. Watch them slowly coming up the slope into the shadow of the overpass, the morning light washing over the wreckage of their faces to show every bit of decayed flesh in detail. Everything has this dreamlike, rosy glow, and I can hear the cicadas whirring in the trees beyond them, rising and falling like waves cresting and crashing on some far-off beach. I wonder what Mom would be thinking if she could see the real me. The me that chucks people off bridges and huffs cocaine like a vacuum.

  I feel tired. I don’t know if it’s the cocaine wearing off or the realization that I’m such a shitty human being. Or both.

  “Guys!” Jasper’s yell interrupts my thoughts. “This pus-bag is clawing at my boots. We gotta go.”

  And we do. Ride the wave.

  South.

  On the far side of Little Rock, we pull ahead, maybe four hundred yards, and do as much blow as we can in the time it takes the horde to catch up. By now, I feel like an old pro, snorting huge lines with a hundred-dollar bill.

  I have no idea where the bill came from. Keb, I guess. “Tradition, baby. Tradition,” he says, and he winks at me, snatches the rolled-up bill, and huffs down a line
. It’s weird holding money, is all I can think.

  We remount, fire up the bikes, and lead the horde south.

  Horde is a poor word for what they are. Horde points to intelligence of some sort—or at least intent—I think, and these things have none now, I’m sure of it. Maybe the freshies, the ones with a brain still intact and not a piece of rotten meat sloshing around in a skull full of putrefying juices. I’ll grant they might still have something going on upstairs. But I doubt it counts as thought. No. They just have instincts, raw and ravenous.

  They call a group of geese a gaggle. A school of fish. A flock of seagulls. A murder of crows. A team of horses. A pack of dogs. A pride of lions.

  We went through all of this in school. Everything has a name.

  But what do you call a group of undead? Never mind one this large. A damily won’t cut it, as Knock-Out says. Maybe an extended fam-damily?

  Next stop, I’ll see what Jasper and Keb think.

  Still tweaking as we roll up on the roadblock. No way to get the bikes across or around.

  Someone guessed we’d be coming. And they devoted the resources to drag cars and trucks and SUVs across the highway all the way to the tree line. I can see where big treads hauled them over. A backhoe, maybe. Or even a Bradley. The woman said they took her to an army base; it could be a Bradley.

  I dismount and take off my gear, preparing for the long hoof.

  We’ll never make it. Never. Might be able to lose the horde, but we’ll never make it to the slavers’ territory without transport.

  There’s fifteen thousand dead at our backs, moaning like, well, whatever it is you call a group this large.

  “What the fuck you doin’, Lil P?”

  I unsling my shotgun, check my headknockers.

  “Getting ready to run.”

  He pops the straps on his M-16, lifts it, chucks a grenade into the launcher.

  “Why?”

  It takes the horde a long time to work itself through the breach. We blew three vehicles into parts, dragged the bigger stuff aside, and rolled through, smelling burning rubber and gasoline.

  “Bottleneck is gonna stretch out the group!” I yell to Keb and Jasper. “Gonna have to slow down even more, if we can.”