There were general murmurs of acceptance.
“How long until the slavers will be mobile? Any idea?” Gus asked.
“Stevens says most of their manpower is currently occupied flushing out and capturing pockets of survivors in Oklahoma, Louisiana, and the panhandle. It looks slow, but they’re gaining momentum. And the fact that they have gas reserves makes them especially dangerous.”
“How long?”
“Five to ten months maybe. No way to know, really.”
Grumbling and coughs. Engineer Broadsword rubbed his face as if stemming tears. Joblownski cleared his throat and said, “We’ll figure something out.”
Doc Ingersol, holding the baby, stood and waved everyone away like she was shooing a flock of chickens—her manner of dismissing a meeting. “Yes, we will. We’ll have to.”
Everyone filed out of the command tent, hushed and somber, except for Wallis and Knock-Out. Doc Ingersol gave Knock-Out a kiss and whispered something in his ear. He smiled wearily in return. I can’t imagine how hard it is for them. It doesn’t look like Knock-Out is going to make it. He and Wallis put their heads together and begin to talk. I wish I could have stayed and listened.
I have no doubt what they discuss will affect us all.
Gus walked me back to my tent, and when we got there, I didn’t wait. I kissed him.
He was surprised. He should have been. I wouldn’t want to be with him if he wasn’t surprised.
“Wha-what?” he stammered. “What was that for?”
“For including me.”
“I don’t know what—”
“Yes, you do. I saw your mother’s expression when I came in. I wasn’t expected. And you didn’t include me because of the idiotic minutes I’ve been taking. No one has even asked to look at the minutes.”
His face went from surprised to embarrassed to serious all in a moment, and I don’t know if it’s because I saw through his ploy or because of the minutes or because of the kiss.
“They are important. We just don’t know how important they are. Yet.” He looked down. Beyond me at the garden. Out at the river.
I kissed him again and this time there was more than a little heat in return.
When we separated, he said, “You’re important too. You ask the right questions. You listen with all of your head, don’t get all emotional, and don’t jump to conclusions. We need you to help us, as a group, as a community. To help lead.”
When he said that, it sent shivers down my spine. My arms rippled with goose bumps. They claim power is the ultimate aphrodisiac. It’s not like he was giving me a crown or anything. But to be more of a part of the councils, to have a voice in the future of our community and, consequently, the future of humankind . . . well, that’s something. That’s something.
More than I ever expected in college, that’s for certain. More than any doctor could have given me. More than any rich man.
I tried to get him to stay with me for the night. He blushed uncontrollably, tried to rub his face with his missing hand. He stammered. I love him for it.
I laughed and remembered he’s still so young.
So now I’m finishing these “minutes” in my tent, by light of an LED flashlight, clacking away. God help the person who ever reads them. They’ll brand me a power-mad hussy.
They’ll be wrong.
6
THE ENGINEER
Dap rides point, I follow, and Klein and Fulcher bring up the rear. The constant sway in the saddle chafes my ass, thighs, and calves horribly, even through motorcycle armor, but it beats working on the Wall.
Two days in the saddle, moving fast to keep ahead of the dead. A long time, longer than I’d like to admit, since I’ve been this close to them, outside the Wall, without people and multiple barricades between them and me. You can’t relax outside. Every noise is threatening, every broken twig a possible shambler. I hear them moaning through the trees, in the brush.
“We’re not gonna make it tonight, Broadsword,” Dap says, looking back at me and the others. Klein has his shotgun and hammer, and Fulcher has one of the old army M-16s and a crowbar tucked into his belt. I’ve got my pistol and a lever action .30-06, which makes me feel somewhat like a cowboy. And a trench shovel for a headknocker. But then the horse shifts, I almost topple off—again—and the illusion of cowboy is gone.
“So what do you suggest?”
“Revs don’t fuck with cattle or horses, so I suggest we put on a little speed, get up over this ridge, pasture the horses somewhere before sundown, and find some nice trees to bunk down in.”
“Trees?”
“Hell, Eric, how do you think I kept my cattle alive for the last few years alone? Get used to bunking in trees.” He pats his saddlebags. “Don’t worry, pard, I got some stuff for you. And with luck, down by this crick, we can find magnolias.”
“Why magnolias?”
“Easy to climb.”
“Fulcher. Hop down there and brain that shambler, will you, before his friends get here for the party?”
“Why me?”
“Because you’re the lowest man on the goddamned totem pole.” Dap grunts and shifts in his nylon hammock. “I can’t climb down over you, now, can I?”
Fulcher remains quiet. He’s scared. I would be too.
“Gimme a sec and I’ll get down there with you.” Might as well help him out. If he’s ever gonna become an engineer, he’ll need to see us doing more than just distilling water and running gennies and collecting bricks. Hiding behind the Wall.
No thanks, just an exhalation of air. “Tell me when you’re ready,” I say at last.
Getting in and out of the small nylon hammocks Dap gave us is easier said than done. I swing my legs over to one side so I’m sitting, ass waffled by the weave. Hand on a branch, I tilt forward and try to find another branch with my foot.
No dice.
I lean more and almost fall out of the hammock. In the end, I’m hanging from my hands and scraping at the trunk with my feet.
“Goddamn, boys. Ain’t you ever camped before?” The tree rustles and the shambler below moans louder. From farther off, another moan answers. Then another.
“Shitload of ’em out there.” Klein clutches his shotgun to his chest.
“Better get down real quick and get those headknockers ready. If you don’t take these out quick-like, we’re gonna have to run for it. A mob forms around the tree, we’ll be stuck. For good.” He spits, not caring that we are below him. “Broadsword, there’s a branch to the left of you. Put your foot there.”
I snag the branch with my boot, steady myself, and find my way lower in the tree until I’m even with Fulcher. We look at each other, nod, and then drop to the ground. The shambler stands closest to me. It immediately issues a garbled, phlegmy sound and, wheeling, lurches at me. My collapsible trench shovel is strapped to my thigh with Velcro, so I walk backward, rip it out, flip open the blade, and screw it tight. Gotta keep distance between me and these things.
Numerous moans sound from the darkness of the woods.
Dap curses. “Christ on a crutch. That’s an extended damily. Time to run, boys.”
The shambler totters in front of me, the smell overpowering. It’s like a walking sewer full of dead pig. I nearly choke, but the silhouette grows and lurches, so I raise the shovel and swipe it across its head. Hard. With everything I’ve got.
The shovel, nearly ripped from my hand from the force of the blow, shudders and rebounds, but the zombie goes down.
I hear Dap scramble down the tree. I get the impression he’s rushing, but the flash of steel in the dark tells me he’s cutting the hammocks and stuffing the white nylon into his rucksack.
Dap and Klein drop to the ground, next to Fulcher and me.
“I said run. It’s time to run.”
“Which way?”
He points. “Stay together.”
We move, hunched over in a skulking trot, our boots ripping at the earth, cracking twigs, making entirely too much
noise.
There’s a damily between us and the horses, which nicker and rear.
It’s not hard to tell the horses aren’t happy. Horses do not like dead people. In fact, they’re pretty adamant about stomping them.
“Ain’t nothing for it, gents. We’ve got to deal with these bastards. To arms.”
Everyone hoists their respective headknockers. A shovel, a couple of hammers, a tire iron. Hammers are the preferred headknocker, I’ve noticed, but I like the army trench shovel because it’s bladed as well. If you can get one down, a couple of well-placed jabs and you can separate the head from the shoulders.
We wade in.
Dap has always seemed to me to be a sour, squirrelly little dude, but he moves like lightning. He’s dropped one rev with his hammer and moved on to the next before the rest of us know what’s happening. I push forward.
One of the revs is fresher than the others. She spasms forward, grabbing me. Thank God she’s short. She starts gnawing on my arm, safely encased in Kevlar motorcycle armor. Even though the teeth aren’t breaking skin, the pressure on my bicep is excruciatingly strong. I yelp.
Klein swipes her head with his tire iron and she folds, almost taking me down with her.
Falling is death. If you go down in a group of shamblers, you’ll never get back up.
“Thanks.” The little courtesies like that are what keep us from becoming like them. Well, that and not dying.
Fulcher, despite his earlier fear, holds quite well against a rather large basketball player of a zombie. He bats the zombie’s arms away with his hammer, once, twice, steps in and swings at the teetering dead man’s head, missing. Dap pops up, lashes out with a booted foot, and crumples the shambler’s knee. The zed topples like a tree, and when he’s down, Fulcher pounds his head to mush.
There’s one more shambler, a charred corpse that could be man or woman. Its fingers are burned off, and it smells absolutely awful. At some point its jaw was knocked off or dislocated, chomping on someone.
Fantastic.
While it’s palming and pawing at me, leaving streaks of char against my vest, I jab it in the face until it falls to the ground, then stomp on its head until it stops moving.
There’s more moaning behind us. An extended damily, for sure. An extended nuclear damily. I hate to think how many more rads I can take before my body becomes one big walking cancer.
Dap’s with the horses now, untying them. I run over. We left saddles on them just in case, and since the case is fucking affirmative . . . well, I’m glad we have Dap with us. Otherwise, we’d be ballast for zed.
When we mounted before, I had to have Klein hold my horse for me. Not now. I amaze myself by popping right up on the beast and whirl her around to look for Dap. Shadows move in the darkness and moans sound from all around.
There’s times where you think you’re gonna scream and you know you shouldn’t and you do whatever you can not to scream, but it feels like it’s gonna come out, like you’re gonna lose control of your own body and let the terror out. That’s how it is now, reins and shovel in my hands, not able to see shit, and the feeling doesn’t subside even when a larger piece of darkness materializes in front of me, horse-shaped, an LED light flashing at the ground.
“Keep on my ass, boys.”
For a second I think he’s going to follow this with “or you’ll wake up in a shambler’s belly,” or one of his other tidbits of zombie wisdom. He doesn’t, thankfully.
The light moves away, and I spur my horse after him.
Things grab at me in the dark, rip at my legs. I swing the trencher like a demented polo player. Something grabs at me, I swing. Terrified, I have no clue, no sensation even, if I’ve hit anything, but I’m moving fast, trying to keep up with the swaying blue light ahead of me, rocking on the back of the horse, in the night, surrounded by unquiet dead.
The high-pitched horse scream, when it comes, is followed by bellows and cries for help. They stop within seconds.
Fulcher is fucked. As is the horse he rode in on.
We’ve gone into full gallop, that rocking, slow back and forth that feels liquid and effortless. Out of the night, I make out other bits of night that have more form. A tree line, a rock.
I hear too. Zombies don’t have a corner on that racket.
There’s a horse behind me. I just hope the horse has a rider.
Soon the light in front slows. Dap has dropped to a canter, and my horse, having more sense than I do, slows as well. The rear horse draws even with us, trotting now, and I see that Klein has made it.
“Well,” Dap says, and the thickness in his voice tells me he’s been hoarding chaw. How he popped it into his mouth at a gallop is anyone’s guess. “We ain’t camping no more tonight.”
Dap doesn’t bother mentioning Fulcher.
“Let’s get a move on. We go steady and careful until sunrise, and then haul fucking ass.”
Sounds good to me. I glance at Klein, and, from what I can tell in the dark, his usual implacable demeanor is a little frazzled. I can’t even imagine what I look like.
Maybe my hair has turned as white as Mark Twain’s.
I’d believe it.
Dap had been bitching when they came to tell us.
“This is a miserable damned detail, Broadsword, salvaging houses. What’d I do to deserve this?”
“You were born. And survived the Big Turnover. You rather be working the Wall?”
He hocked and spat.
Barker dumped an eight-foot two-by-four onto the wagon and walked back to the house. We’d already dismantled the roof into component parts—timber into one pile, the scrap roofing wheelbarrowed to the river to be dumped—and were working down to the studs. Klein was on guard detail, modeling sunglasses and hoisting a bludgeon instead of a shotgun, trying for all the world to look like a penitentiary guard from Cool Hand Luke. Even though we’d managed to ring Tulaville—twice—with chain-link, you can’t be too wary. The zeds have ways of getting around anything. Climbing up from the river. Coming out of uncleared basements. Falling from the skies.
Who knows? But come they do.
When the house was down to its cinder blocks and studs, we drank water from a cooler, smoked grapevine, and sat on the concrete foundation and watched Bridge City.
“Damn, she’s a pretty sight.”
She is. We whitewashed the trusses in the first of summer to get rid of the verdigris, using the barrels of exterior paint found at Landry’s Hardware. I guess whitewashed isn’t the right phrase. We painted it, anyway, and that was a struggle, erecting the scaffolding and the rigging. The womenfolk planted clematis near the arches in spring, and now, late summer, it grows up the base of the trusses, over the women’s quarter and northern section of the gardens, all of it making the bridge look like some forgotten Roman temple, multihued with a garland of purple. The clematis is stunted, but we don’t get as much sunshine as we used to, before all that ash went into the sky. Joblo thinks the ash has settled in the Arctic, discoloring it. Causing the snow to melt. The oceans to rise. More water pushed into the air. Cooling the earth, maybe.
As far as growing seasons go, we haven’t had a good one since the Big Turnover.
The shadows lengthened toward us from the west and Dap said, “Heads up, Broadsword. Here comes your boss.”
“Hell could he want?”
Dap puffed on his grapevine and said, “Oh, I imagine quite a bit.”
Most of Eureka Springs is long-dead cinders. It’s surprisingly devoid of shamblers as we clop through the narrow, winding streets. Hard to tell if the fires were set or they occurred naturally, postmortem mundi. We had quite a dry summer last year, and Eureka is smack dab in the middle of a forest.
I haven’t been inside a city in years. Eureka was never truly a town as you’d know it. Perched in the Ozark mountain forests, it was a Victorian holdout with small streets lined with dainty, embroidered houses and crammed with artisan shops staffed by hippies. Now the ruins look more European t
han American. Definitely not Arkansan. The charred skeletons of pines and deciduous trees scratch and scrabble at the sky, and we ride past black, jumbled timbers. Beyond the char of trees, the wind moans in the pines. Somewhere, in the little dead hamlet, a shambler answers.
I came here once with Julian, before the end. We stayed at a bed-and-breakfast and fucked ourselves silly, slept late, and ate thick toast with marmalade and drank wonderfully old scotch and walked hand in hand, unafraid, down the quaint little streets, peering in shop windows with their endless trinkets and homemade peanut brittle. Unafraid, even here in this little backwoods Victorian fantasy. The hippies smiled at us. Matrons scowled. And we laughed.
But that was a world ago. We never rode the train.
I pull the hand-drawn map from the interior pocket of my Kevlar jacket, unfold it, and lay it as flat as I can on the pommel of my saddle. Dap reins in next to me and leans over.
He jabs a finger at a nexus of connecting lines.
“We’re there.” He smells like sour sweat and chewing tobacco. Not all unpleasant. But not roses either. “And we’re facing that way, I believe.”
Makes sense.
“So we need to angle here, looks like, and descend. If I remember correctly, there’s a gulley running through that part of the town.”
“There’s gullies everywhere around here, but yes, you’re dead on.”
Unfortunate turn of phrase, that.
We ride down the street, descending the hill, passing tight between buildings, some of them looking like they were built during the WPA-era works programs. Bathhouses, maybe. Libraries. But there are only a few, and they are sooty black on the outside.
The moaning grows louder, and it isn’t the pines anymore. A shambler teeters from behind a building. This one actually has moss or something growing all over him. He looks like the Swamp Thing.
But there are more undead where he comes from. They shamble out from behind low-slung walls against hills or up from clusters of charred timbers.
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