He must have been done with life or he wouldn’t have gone so easily. Nan Hormel could do nothing but concede to that rifle shot ripping off her head, though she still lived in Micah and Austin and Jeffrey Parro. These were things that Merry Meet/Cheryl could not understand. The woman was fifty years old and sought imaginary connections to lizards, while Micah was seventeen and initiated into a deeper mystery. Why tissues and hugs? Why a flow party? There should have been drums for what Micah saw that night! Quick as lightning for the fetal heart, fast for a baby, slowing and slowing through childhood with occasional sinus tachycardia for sprints and startling. She would beat the slow tempo of school and work, the quickening on Friday for a weekend, the steady rhythm of sleep. Picking up speed at the events in Blue Hill and her palms sore from the crescendo of those last, desperate beats . . . fading away to dark. Not the endless silly circle of talking about feelings, she wanted to pound a drum for those ending lives. Someone on another drum could beat faster to represent Micah’s heart beating on as her own hands slipped into silence.
That was a ritual she understood, one with relevance to her life. They died, and she stayed. She wanted to know where they went, to heaven or ether or somewhere else. That was a blood mystery, not her stupid menstrual cycle.
It was past midnight when Micah slipped out of the house. She hadn’t planned to take the dog but he whined and scratched for her on the other side of the fence. They got into the V-6 together and drove off into the night. He looked at her reproachfully and she patted his back in apology. This was his secret life, too. His release. She had no right to take it away.
At the cemetery, he sniffed the grave with the anchor. They went to Trevor’s plaque so that he could receive his penny. Micah closed her eyes and listened to the drums beating for his life and death, saw dancers dressed in black whirling around a bonfire. One day people should dance and drum for her, if ever she decided to die.
“Fuck you,” she whispered to Trevor for allowing himself to crumple. She still looked for his face at Welcome Mat. Fuck him for knowing a secret she didn’t.
Going back to the car, she debated what to do with the last hour of her freedom. The dog nestled into his blankets and she thought someone, somewhere would be dumb enough to make this old, unbrushed spaniel a totem, infusing spiritual wisdom into his barks and stomach rumbles. “Where should we go?” she asked teasingly. “North?” He looked at her. “South? West?” At west, he lowered his head. West it was, the sage animal totem commanding it. She should find a groomer for him, make an appointment at Pet-Pet, and she wondered if his owners would even notice. She doubted it. Micah was sure that she could swap him out for some other spaniel and they wouldn’t note the difference. Not that she would. No dog deserved them.
West was Penger. Micah tapped her phone and wrote: Where are you, baby? Home yet and all tucked in to beddie-bye?
Freezing to death outside the Penger Tasty Rooster and protecting people from zombies like you, Zaley wrote. Micah grinned, happy when Zaley was trying to be a bitch. What an asshole she really was at heart, playing with zombies at school and with Shepherds at night like you could have it both ways. Corbin had come to her defense as always when Micah said that, saying she didn’t know what it was like for Zaley at home. Elania backed up Corbin. All Micah knew was if her mothers had thought prior to Sombra C to make her a Shepherd, they’d have another think coming.
Or maybe she’d play along for a while, just to see what it was like. That was essentially what she was doing in therapy. Searching Tasty Rooster in her phone, Micah pulled up directions. On the way, she bought two coffees at the Tic-Tac-Taco drive-thru. It was too bad that her stamp was on the right side where the employee couldn’t see.
People in vests patrolled the roads she passed, in ones and twos going into alleys with flashlights or just standing around. She’d seen Shepherds in the red cities, peeking into dumpsters and speaking on walkie-talkies. So far she had yet to be caught in a brace. But Micah wouldn’t comply with an order to step out of her vehicle; she’d stomp on the gas and blow through. If it wasn’t a DUI check run by cops, then she didn’t have to stop.
Evan Hudson was the Patron Saint for this pack of jokers. Micah had looked him up online. He was a retired real estate attorney and owned many business complexes throughout the local cities. Twice he had run for mayor of Penger and lost, and an article relayed that he outspent his competition by a ratio of three to one each time. Did that embarrass him? No matter how much he owned of this city and how much money he threw away to garner support, it still wasn’t enough to get his own community to vote for him.
On the sidewalk by Tasty Rooster, Zaley was a tiny spot on the corner of Ketterman and Duluth. She blanched to recognize the V-6 coming her way. Rolling down the window, Micah offered the second coffee and said, “Hey there! Do you know the way to Cloudy Valley High? I’m totally lost and I have finals in the morning-”
“Micah! You can’t be here!” Zaley exclaimed.
“Why not? It’s a free country.”
“Not anymore and this place is crawling with Shepherds!” Zaley fit a walkie-talkie into a holder on her belt and accepted the coffee. The sleeves of her jacket were dirty, and so were the sling and her vest with the Shepherd logo. Harbo sat up and wagged his tail. Leaning into the car with agitation, Zaley said, “You have to get out of here. I’m not kidding, some of these idiots are dangerous and a few of them carry guns.”
“But Elania said you were lost in trig,” Micah said stupidly.
Zaley sighed and bonked her head to Harbo’s. “Who are you?”
“He came with the car. I just usually keep him in the trunk. So what’s the word, statue? Any zombies around?”
“Nah, I’m put here because there’s so much lighting. It’s really unlikely anyone but you will show.” She sipped her coffee and made a face at the dirt on her clothes. “This evening we unloaded a truck full of random shit and loaded it into another while everyone talked about how great it is that Prime is trying to hold the government hostage to the electrical grid.”
A car traveled by, Zaley tensing as Micah said, “What random shit?”
“I don’t know. It was an absolutely massive stack of really old and jacked-up wooden stakes pulled out of the ground from somewhere, dirt and weeds all over them. There was paint on some of them like lettering. Everyone got splinters. We moved them into a truck headed up to Sonoma so they can be burned as residential debris on someone’s property. The burn ban is still in effect here, but up there the restriction lifts tomorrow for a whole day. Isn’t that fascinating?”
“They made you move stakes with one arm?”
“Yeah. Now will you go?”
“I can’t, not yet. I want to know whom I should talk to about becoming a Shepherd. I think I have a lot to offer your organization.”
“I’ll hook you up with the people in power. You’d make a great Shepherd.” The walkie-talkie blipped. Setting the coffee on the sidewalk, Zaley retrieved it. “TR statue, over.”
A young man’s voice responded. “Five call, Rattler on way for us. Blue problem, over?”
Zaley spied out the back window and hissed about the figure far in the distance, “Fuck, Cham sees you. No blue problem, just a thankful civilian, over.”
“You are such a tool,” Micah said. “Why don’t the cops make you go home?”
“Seriously? Three-quarters of the cops in Penger are Shepherds. Rattler’s dad is no less than the chief of police.” Zaley checked the time on the car clock and moaned. “My ride will be here in five minutes. I really needed to study tonight. Now I’m too tired to care.”
“The hypotenuse is the longest side of a right-angled triangle.”
“Thanks. Now get out of here before Chameleon walks over to collect his own personal thank-you.”
“Tell me your little animal name first.”
“Flamingo. No, I didn’t pick it. Go!”
Micah eased down the street and turned the corner to do a p
ace of Penger streets, watching Shepherds as they watched for zombies. A gust of breath came out of Harbo, who resettled into his blankets, and she felt a gust of breath leave her as well. Now she could deal with school in the morning.
It never touched her, the rituals in school and religion and life in general. Valentine’s Day had passed with Sally Wang hanging over some new boyfriend at a locker by Micah’s, chocolate hearts and kiss-grams exchanging hands all around. Why did people get so excited about these things? Like love was something filled with corn syrup and wrapped in red foil? Why were the seniors besieging their inboxes and mailboxes hour-by-hour to see if colleges had mailed out acceptances yet? Why did the coven need to welcome the light when everyone had electricity? Micah wanted more from this world, but had no idea what more should look like. All she could say for certain was that it wouldn’t look like a congratulatory letter from Yale.
Spying a big group of Shepherds jaywalking, she sped up and made them dive for the sidewalks. In her head, she listened to drums.
Austin
The alarm went off at six on the last day of finals. Austin moaned and turned over to hit snooze on his phone. He had to pee something fierce, but the tangle of sheets and blankets around him was seductively warm. Some pleasant dream was already out of conscious reach, leaving only the knowledge that he wanted to get back to it. He flailed at the fading wisps and returned to sleep.
A clock spun past ten and eleven, noon and one as Austin ran around the house trying to find his pants to get to school. Every time he got them on and fled for the door, the horn of the V-6 blaring outside, they disappeared and he hunted frantically once more. Micah ditched him just as he yanked up his pants for the umpteenth time. Then Austin was running through a forest that had grown between the Camborne home and Cloudy Valley High, clocks on the trees showing a variety of times that made him either hours late or with only minutes to the first bell.
Finals! He jerked awake with the alarm and cursed. They had to refuel the V-6 on the way to school since the lines by afternoon were four deep or worse with rationing. The frayed tempers and swerving cars put him on edge, as did the special STAMPED service window at every Royal Fuel and Comanico. He wasn’t allowed in the minimarts and could only order what was inside through the window. Comanico was even more stringent, refusing to accept cash from the stamped. If you didn’t have a card, you were shit out of luck. Randomly, Gas-O Cheap-O allowed Sombra Cs into the minimart but not the restrooms, although no one checked.
If they left early, they could cut across town to We Got Gas, an ancient station in a rundown area that didn’t care if its customers had Sombra C or not. Regulars called it Weegee’s for short, and Austin had gone into the tiny minimart twice for shit he didn’t need just to be able to shop without gloves. There were only two aisles, but they were cram-packed. It was sad how much he enjoyed plucking up candy and beef jerky in his bare hands, making hot dogs or dallying over sodas at the refrigerator. The woman who worked the counter was older than the Big Bang, and Austin doubted her vision extended to the other side of the counter where stamped or suspiciously scarved customers were standing. This morning while Micah pumped, he was going in for doughnuts.
That meant he actually had to get up first. His bladder and thoughts of long gas station lines propelled him out of the nest and into the bathroom. If he got all the way to Cloudy Valley High shut down with another bomb threat, he was going to be pissed. And then happy, since it meant he could climb back in bed. Finals were kicking his ass, everyone’s stress contagious and ratcheting up his own. There should be some time off between semesters, but next Monday they marched right into the second. Most of the senior class was in a tizzy over the wait for college acceptances. Those who weren’t had either already been accepted through the spider web of early decision, early action, and rolling admissions, or else were going to the junior college, joining the Army, or working. Kader was annoying everyone with his agony over which university to choose. He had applied to every Ivy League school and was confident that he’d be accepted to all of them. It got on Austin’s nerves to hear Kader gab on and on about how this decision determined their entire futures. What if he chose Harvard when Yale would have been better? What if he chose Yale when all along Princeton was the right place for him?
Everyone was in the kitchen by the time he got downstairs. Micah’s lips were moving silently over her notes at the table, coffee steaming in a mug by a textbook and her laptop open to the online encyclopedia. Faye scrambled eggs in a pan while Terra poured juice and talked on the phone. She handed the glasses to Austin, who set them on the table. They’d eat fast and go. A cell rang in another room just as Faye scooped eggs onto a plate, a chunk falling off the spatula to the floor. She bent with a groan and said, “That’s Shalom! I’ll call her right back.” It stopped ringing.
Pressing pause on her call, Terra said, “Oh, she just tried me, too.”
Then Micah’s phone rang behind her laptop where she couldn’t see it. She searched through her notes as Austin leaned forward and picked it up. “Hi, Shalom.”
“Austin? Austin, is that you?” Shalom said with intensity. “I can’t get hold of anyone else.”
He pressed speakerphone in bewilderment. “We’re all here.”
There was a lot of noise around her, voices crackling over an intercom, thumps and slides, and she bid them not to talk since she was in a hurry. Faye forgot the eggs and Terra hung up to gather around the table and listen. Shalom spoke in a rush. At three that morning, she had been woken by screaming from another room. Shepherds had cut the electricity and broken into the university’s residential colleges to search for the Sombra C students, unaware that they were forced to live off-campus, and also unaware that those students had gone home for their own safety. Threats had been coming hard and fast against the school for letting them stay, and against the individual students themselves. So they’d dropped out. But the Shepherds didn’t know any of that. They were here to take care of the problem once and for all.
Shalom had a Sombra C sticker on her door to show support for her little sister.
When everyone at the table gasped, she reminded them sharply not to speak. Crying out about the sticker, the Shepherds had kicked open her door and knocked the cell from her hand, where she was on hold with the police. Shalom was forced down to her knees, in a thicket of men’s legs and men’s voices, and a fist hit her cheek when she screamed. Her head was jerked back roughly, her mouth forced open for a saliva test when she had no stamp on her neck. The sticker was torn from her door as the swab was torn from her mouth. Clean, and they spat on her for that sticker. They tore apart her closet looking for anyone hiding there and moved on.
Shalom put on her slippers and followed, blood leaking from her nose and saliva dripping from her chin.
Police arriving to the scene found themselves under fire by Shepherds waiting in the courtyards. Blood spilled on the snow as they traded shots, surrounded by buildings under siege. By and large, the occupants of the residential colleges screamed in fear but submitted to the search. Shalom’s, however, attacked.
They stared at the phone, her words coming in raggedly as she rushed somewhere. Boys had wrestled the intruders to the floor and girls swung chairs at others, guns and knives were kicked away and a shot student carried to safety. Belts and ties were used to truss them, students in rage to reclaim their space, their university. The Shepherds were beaten unconscious as bullets flew through windows from the firefight in the courtyards.
“Throw them out! Throw them out of here!” a girl ordered. Windows opened. Students lifted the Shepherds one by one and threw them out from the second story.
Shalom Sunrise Camborne, a straight-A student who ran a pet-sitting business on vacations and believed in world peace, had thrown a man out of a window to his death.
She had been holding the ankles and counting for the first man, who was thrust into the air by a dozen outraged hands at one, elbows locking at two, the swing forward
and release at three. They all chanted the numbers for the second man and the third, and they raised their voices to count louder when the fourth begged for mercy. Shalom felt no pity, and her cheers joined the others once the eighth and last Shepherd was over the side. They hugged each other and roared with joy, screamed epithets down to those still, crumpled figures in the snow.
Austin looked to the family picture on the wall. Willowy blonde Shalom was behind Terra, her hands on her mother’s shoulders lovingly, the same hands that had just released a man’s ankles to let him die. It was half past nine her time at the JFK airport, and she was through security. White-faced, Terra said, “Shalom, there’s going to be an investigation! Don’t the police want to talk to you?”
“No, listen to me!” Shalom panted. “New Haven is in absolute chaos right now with fires and rioting. People are evacuating! My flight has a layover in Denver and I’m coming in to SFO this afternoon. Will you pick me up? I’ll send a text with my flight information.”
“We’ll come in the V-6 after our last finals,” Austin said automatically, since Terra and Faye would be at work.
“You can’t! You two are stamped,” Terra protested. “I’ll be there, Shalom, but-”
“I’ve got to go, I’m at the gate and they’re almost done boarding!”
No one spoke much at breakfast, everyone split between the stunning nature of the call and the normal press of the day ahead. When finished eating, Austin loaded the dishwasher rapidly while Micah got dressed and her mothers readied to leave. The first final was at eight sharp and he had government. His studying had been haphazard for that one since it was open book, science and math of the days before taking up all of his time and energy. The second final was at half past ten, and required no studying at all since it was computers. Then he had a scant two days to recover.
The Zombies: Volumes One to Six Box Set Page 49