by Emma Shortt
Pete passed him a crescent wrench. “Some people, and I’m one of them, by the time they get here they’re not—ah shit I don’t even know how to explain it.”
“Pretend we’re back in my garage and you’re trying to explain the ticking noise in your Mustang.”
“I miss that car.”
“I miss my garage.”
“Well, look, I lost Lily, you saw that,” Pete began. The shadow that crossed his face spoke plenty on his thoughts about that. Pete and Lily had been inseparable. The love between them had been obvious for all to see. The lack of that now in Pete’s life was apparent. Despite his cheery facade, he was a broken man. It pained Luke to see it. “I made my way down here purely on instinct and because I had nothing else to do,” Pete continued. “I was planning to cross over the border and head into Mexico when I saw the signs.”
“The signs?”
“Nancy had a team go out a year or so ago and paint some of the walls around the crossings. Basically instructions on how to get to a drop-off point, not to the camp you understand, we have to be careful, but somewhere we can check for survivors.”
“Smart move,” Luke said.
Pete shrugged. “Only one of the guys came back so it wasn’t that smart, but we’ve only added about fifty extra people because of them…so yeah…maybe it was.”
“And you found these signs?” Luke prompted.
“Well yeah,” Pete said. “I thought if I could find others, I could start putting myself back together again. I was on the edge, seriously considering shit you do not want to know about.”
Luke thought about Jackson on the observation deck. “I can understand that.”
“Trouble is…” He paused and stood. “It doesn’t work that way.”
“We’ve all lost everything.”
“It’s easier for people like you,” Pete said, though there was no resentment in his voice, just a sort of deadness. “People who come here with a skill. Look at you. Already you’re here and you’ll be lucky if you ever leave this garage again. We need you. You wouldn’t believe how pleased Nancy and Mack were when they found out you were a mechanic. I’ve fiddled with the cars and Jace has helped, but pretty soon we’ll need someone with more knowledge—hell, we already do. It’s like that for Sebastian and Layla and some of the others. They have a purpose. So they can forget at times about the zombies and concentrate on doing something for the community. That sort of shit keeps you going, you know?”
Luke popped open the hood of one of the Hummers, nudging Pete aside. “I guess. I mean, I can understand where you’re coming from. But surely in a community this size everyone is needed?”
“Yes,” Pete agreed. “But mostly they’re needed for defense. So everyone who isn’t needed for other things does that. We’re the goddamn army. Which means we never get to forget, even for a minute, about the zombies. We’re fighting them daily. They’re hungry now. More willing to risk the heat, and we can’t let them build up and mount an attack. So that’s what we do and here’s the thing…” He paused again and Luke waited, knowing that Pete would get there when he was ready.
The sounds of activity washed over them both. People going to and fro about their business. Kiddies on their way to lessons, maybe, little Sammy probably one of them. Meals being prepared, gadgets fixed. It was like an echo of lost times and Luke reveled in it.
“We like it,” Pete finally said.
“Killing zombies?”
He nodded. “It’s what we are now. More than that, it’s who we are. Being here in normality again, or as normal as things can be today, doesn’t work for us. Little things get to me. The kids playing, the sound of laughter. I get itchy, antsy, and the only way to fix that is to go out and kill some zombies. There are loads of us like that here. We’ll do it until we can’t do it anymore, or until the zombies take us all out. I think it’s kind of like those vets, you know from the old wars, who never really got used to civilian life again.”
Luke struggled to think of a response and buried himself in the car, playing for time. He understood what Pete meant. Hadn’t he himself taken down as many as he could? Trying to clear his area? But always underneath that had been the desire for a sliver of normality again. The wish for the world to return to how it had been, how it was supposed to be. Here in this little camp he got that. He could forget for a time that the zombies wanted to eat him. That they prowled in those houses he and Jackson had been trapped in just an hour away. What Pete was suggesting seemed absurd, that some people were now too far gone to want to forget them, to crave normality again? That being reminded was too much?
The image came to him then of Jackson on the couch in their room, running her hands up and down Mandy’s hilt. Over and over again like some ritual. The vision of her placing Mandy under her pillow, of waking up throughout the night to do her “security sweep.”
A nasty feeling slithered down his spine and he tried to push it away. Because Jackson had wanted this hadn’t she? Had been searching for it for so fucking long. Her entire life had been about finding some sort of safety…and yet…
“How do you know who those people are?” he asked slowly.
Pete passed him a screwdriver and laughed humorlessly. “Give them a day or so after arriving and they’re ready to head right back out.”
…
With Luke busy in the garage, Jackson slipped into her jeans and vest—smelling a bit ripe, she had to admit—and left the room. They were on the top floor, at Jackson’s request, and she padded down the staircase carefully. It was habit now to take each step one at a time and to pause to minimize any possible creakage. Her feet fell into that familiar rhythm without her even thinking about it. She looked back and forth after each step, wincing slightly as her boots left little brown marks on the clean stair boards. Mandy’s wooden hilt felt warm in her hand and she let out a soft sigh, clenching and unclenching around it. Though she knew nothing would be waiting for her at the bottom of the stairs, or likely to come from the top, she didn’t actually know it. A zombie had gotten into the camp, after all, and like she’d told Luke, now was not the time to let her guard down completely.
At the foot of the stairs Jackson looked left and right, letting out a deep breath when nothing lurked, howled, or ran. Her hand was sweaty and she took a moment to wipe it on her jeans.
She made her way out of the thick wooden front doors, pausing for just a moment to gauge both the thickness, and the quality of the locks before stepping outside. The air was warm, muggy even. She imagined the dead trying to fight their way through it, each step getting slower and slower. Nancy had said something about them not being able to sweat properly and Jackson spent a minute thinking about that as she looked around the outside area.
The building she and Luke had been housed in stood at a right angle next to another building, which was then at an angle to the next, creating a C-shape. They were clustered off from the other sets of buildings, a couple of minutes’ walk. Directly opposite, Jackson could see the same arrangement of buildings, and that was repeated again next to them. She did a quick mental calculation, working out the number of possible rooms, and could see that there was easily enough room for a few hundred people—just like Nancy had said.
Smells invaded her senses as she walked forward down the building’s path. It seemed that the garden areas, either sides of the flagstones, were taken up with various plants, and Jackson recognized a few, including wild garlic and tomatoes. She wondered what other foodstuffs—maybe things she hadn’t eaten in what seemed like forever—were dotted about and resolved to find out at some point. She did have a whole morning to fill.
Her mind flickered across to Luke and she sighed, wondering what he was up to. Fixing cars, she answered herself. Busy finding his place here. She sighed and swung Mandy back and forth. She wasn’t angry with Luke, not at all. It was good that he’d found something to do, that he was contributing, but she did feel a little lost. Would there be something for her to do here, as well?
She knew she didn’t have any real qualifications. She wasn’t a doctor or a dentist or even a qualified cook. The only thing she had any skill at now was slaying the dead.
Jackson walked across the courtyard, tense and a little nervous. She looked back and forth, taking everything in, trying to assimilate all the information in one go. The main courtyard was a damn good size, made of compacted mud. It would allow every survivor to stand with a good few feet around them. She noticed people laughing in the towers around the perimeter fence. Other people hung around outside the houses, chatting. One in particular seemed to be a focal point for activity. It was a little larger than the others, and had a wide, wraparound porch. Jackson swallowed and took a deep breath. She’d have to go and talk to someone at some point. She knew this, and yet she was strangely reluctant. It’s because you haven’t been around people for so long, her mind said, and also maybe because you’ve got a touch of the paranoids.
A tall, thin guy walked up then, from the direction of the houses opposite hers, a burlap sack in his sinewy arms. He smiled and jogged over. “Coming up to the main house for some breakfast?”
Jackson nodded slowly. “I think so. I wasn’t sure what to—”
“You can follow with me if you’d like,” he said. “I’m Sebastian, by the way. Oh, and its Frosted Fruit Flakes. Breakfast is always Frosted Fruit Flakes. We found a factory not far from here and took about a year’s supply. So every morning is the same thing. Dry Frosted Fruit Flakes.”
She couldn’t help but smile at his accent, which was British and like cut glass. She half expected him to give a “tally ho” or “cheerio.” How long had it been since she’d heard those sorts of tones? Years, at least.
“Pleased to meet you, Sebastian,” she said, casting a glance up and down him. He was about thirty or so, she guessed, but his hair was completely gray, and it stood in loose spikes around his head, as if he’d been pulling at it over and over. But he had the most amazing blue eyes Jackson had ever seen, and she’d definitely put him in the yum-yum category. She fell into step behind him, Mandy still held loosely. “Oh, I’m Jackson. Sorry, my manners deserted me a while ago. I guess I’m gonna have to relearn them.”
“You don’t really need that here,” he said, nodding at her machete. “Or the manners even, and I already knew your name. Is it your actual name?”
“Force of habit, and yeah, of course, why wouldn’t it be?”
Sebastian shrugged. “People change their names when things like this go down. We had a ‘Shadow’ once. He was a rather shady character though, and left after a couple of weeks. So where’s your chap?”
Jackson smiled slightly. Already it seemed she and Luke had been lumped firmly together. That pleased her in an odd way. She didn’t want anyone thinking of her as Luke’s wimpy woman, but she was happy for everyone to see them as a couple. “Luke, you mean?”
Sebastian nodded. “Saw you both last night. I only nipped in to get some food and it was straight back to work for me. It was fantastic though to realize we had two new survivors, especially young people like yourselves.”
“You’re not exactly a senior citizen,” Jackson said.
He laughed. “Apart from the hair. Premature graying, what can I say? I have a stressful job. So, where is Luke?”
“He’s with the cars,” Jackson answered. “He’s a mechanic.” She felt a weird kind of pride saying those words, something totally new to her.
“Thank God!” Sebastian sighed. “We needed a mechanic, badly. Last time I made the trip up to the shack we broke down. We had to wait to be picked up and ride back cramped on each other’s laps in the second car. Not the most pleasant experience, especially as I was seated on Jay. He growled at me the entire journey home.”
“He’s happy to help out,” Jackson assured him. “We both are.”
“So what are you, then?” Sebastian asked. “Or rather what were you before the end of the world?”
Jackson shrugged, the uncomfortable feeling returning. “Nothing special. What about you?”
“Oh, I’m the doctor.”
Something clicked in Jackson’s mind then and she halted. “Yes, of course. Nancy mentioned you. You know all about the zombies. About why the heat affects them.”
Sebastian heaved at the sack and rolled his shoulders. “Well…”
“Is that too heavy for you?”
“No, of course not!”
Jackson raised an eyebrow, transferred Mandy to her left hand, and took the sack. Sebastian spluttered slightly but she ignored him and carried on to the house with all the activity, her mind whirring in a million different directions. Was it finally time to get some of her questions answered? “I need the exercise. Don’t want to go soft. Now, Sebastian, tell me, how much do you know about them, the waking dead I mean?”
He frowned and gestured to the sack. “I can carry my own stuff, you know. It’s just awkward. I might not be a soldier-type like you and the others but I’m not a complete wimp.”
“Like I said, I don’t want to get soft.”
“No one goes soft here.” He snapped his fingers. “Of course. I know who you are now. Polly was talking but I wasn’t really listening. I was busy. But I am almost certain she said Jackson, and yes that’s good. Perfect, in fact.”
“Huh? Who is Polly? You lost me.”
“She’s a friend of mine, a scientist,” he said, as if that should have been perfectly obvious.
Jackson hefted the sack a little. “Did I meet her last night?”
“No,” he said. “She doesn’t live here.”
“Where does she live?”
Sebastian waved a hand in a vague kind of direction. “In another place entirely.”
Another place? Jackson frowned, wondering if Sebastian had all his cents to the dollar, because Nancy had said nothing about another camp close by. She frowned and racked her brain, a moment later and she remembered. “Polly is the woman in Chicago? At the university there?”
He smiled. “She is.”
“And she mentioned me?” Jackson said, wondering if her and Luke’s arrival was already a topic of conversation at the camps that seemed to be dotted around the country, camps the Laredo people were in contact with.
Sebastian gestured to the group by the door, one hand tugging at his gray locks. “I’m not entirely sure. Like I said I wasn’t really listening. But look, there’s so much to do, Jackson! And never enough hours in the day to do it. The others help me out. They don’t like it much, though, and Colin quit a few days ago. Said he couldn’t stand the smell anymore.”
Jackson gaped, completely lost by the good doctor’s rambling. “The smell?”
Sebastian nodded forcefully and tugged at his locks again. “I can’t say I blame him. It is quite awful and I’ve had a couple of years to get used to it. Still, it’s very annoying losing them one after the other. I’m getting down to the last few. What will happen then, I ask you? Nancy will have to force them into it and they won’t be happy.”
Jackson frowned, glanced at the group by the door, who gave her what looked like a knowing look, and then back to Sebastian again. “You know you’re not making any sense, right?”
He smiled, and that smile of his was quite brilliant, crinkling his eyes and making him, Jackson had to admit, look a teensy bit maniacal.
“You’re good with that blade I assume?” he asked.
Jackson nodded. “Of course I am.”
“Good enough to take down a pack on your own if you have to?”
“I have done,” she said slowly. “But it isn’t easy when it’s five on one.”
“It’s never easy. Why would it be?” he agreed as if this should have been perfectly obvious. “But unfortunately it’s necessary. Now tell me, how soon can you be ready to leave?”
Chapter Twenty-nine
It was almost ten o’clock by the time Luke put down his tools. He was sweating profusely and ridiculously grateful for the fact that Pete had thought to bring a supply of water
with him. The water came from some sort of well on the property, sunk when building of the new housing development began. Just another thing, Luke was beginning to learn, in a long line of positives about the place.
“Time to take a break?” Pete asked.
Luke nodded. “I’d kill for a coffee.”
“Then you are in luck, my man,” Pete said, clasping him on the shoulder. “We have tins and tins of the instant stuff. Found it in the same warehouse we got the Frosted Fruit Flakes.” He shook his head. “They’re grim. I never thought anything could taste worse than some of the shit we ate on patrol, but morning after morning of that stuff?”
“Might be a bit more palatable with milk,” Luke said. “I had loads of the dried stuff in my bunker.”
“Can’t believe you found that place,” Pete said. “You lucked out.”
Luke wiped his hands on one of the rags, oddly cheered to see the grease there. The smell of the garage, the feel of it. Once or twice over the course of the morning he’d almost found himself humming. He’d forget, for just a few seconds, the reality of the world. Whether that was a good thing or not, he did not know.
“I mean who the fuck was so paranoid in the Chicago suburbs they built a fucking bunker?” Pete added.