The Zombies: Volumes One to Six Box Set

by Macaulay C. Hunter

  The bags were filled with a random assortment of candy bars, bottles of juice, beef jerky, and string cheese. Wishing that she’d stolen some beer, Austin helped himself to a candy bar. She leaned back in the seat and closed her eyes. Cracking open an orange juice, he drank deeply. They had gas. They had food. Not enough, but some. They should go to the bank and withdraw some money. If the electricity blew out here, their bankcards weren’t worth a damn thing.

  Cars moved through the station, one after another after another, and they were going to keep coming until the underground tanks were drained dry. People would keep coming to Mr. Foods until there wasn’t a scrap left on the shelves. Maybe they’d hit places like Tic-Tac-Taco and Berry Berry Fresh next, the panicked swarm moving like locusts until every last crumb was eaten, every bottle of water emptied, every drop of fuel burned, and then . . .

  -breaking update from our command center in-

  “I don’t think I’m going to college,” Austin said in misery. He couldn’t, not now. Right now he had to find a way to survive.

  -official. The United States of America is at war-

  Inspecting a lock of her multi-colored hair, Micah said casually, “Sweetie, I don’t think any of us are.”

  Set Six

  Zaley

  They had wanted to live.

  The television was the fourth member of the Mattazollo family, a sleepless toddler who could only communicate a set number of phrases at top volume. Over and over, the news played a voicemail recording of the people on Flight 48 screaming as their plane went down. Oh God! Oh God, we’re going to die! Mommy! Mommy, what’s wrong with the plane? Hold on to me, honey. Oh God! Then it was wordless, filling the house with the chilling harmony of terror.

  No divine being swept down and saved them. The tightest hug did not spare the child. There was no variable in the formula for gravity that gave weight to their desperate desire to live. Any of them on Flight 48 would have traded places with Zaley in a heartbeat. Safe on the ground and walking to school for finals, not plummeting thirty thousand feet to doom.

  If God were to allow it, she’d trade with someone on that plane. It was wrong how people who wanted so badly to die just kept on living, and those who wanted so badly to live were the ones within the blackened wreckage on that screaming screen, burned beyond recognition. God should have let them trade. If God were love, then He would have done something. So maybe there wasn’t a God.

  “Big things are coming,” Dad said every time they drove to Penger. Big changes. This world was going to be remade from the bottom up, and they were privileged to be part of it. Now he spoke to Zaley, since she was a Shepherd. It gave them a bond they’d never had despite living as father and daughter in the same house for seventeen years.

  He laughed about strange things he’d seen on paces and she laughed when he looked over expectantly. The homeless dude who talked to a doll in his cart! Those people were such a drain on society. He hated to think of his tax dollars supporting woses like that. Someone should put Dad in charge of the economy and he’d save a mint! Rather than pour millions of dollars in resources into buckets with holes in the bottom, he’d tell everyone that a bullet cost twenty-five cents. See how fast those homeless people found some respectable work and an apartment knowing that the free ride had just been replaced with the Lead Slug Policy. He laughed and looked over, so Zaley laughed on cue.

  The pissy woman who screamed at the Shepherds to stop hanging around the alley behind her restaurant! She was probably a dyke or a feminist. That was the problem with America. Did you know that, Zaley? Everyone wants to be in a special group and line up for special treatment, rather than pull themselves up by their own bootstraps. That woman should shave her legs and shut up. No wonder there wasn’t a ring on her finger! Bet she couldn’t figure out why, but Dad knew.

  The roach coach Mexicans who passed out burritos in the Bernie’s Fernies parking lot! Those people sailed over the borders and dropped their anchor babies, got free healthcare and housing and education, stole jobs and mooched off the government and kept the drug trade invigorated. Where were the college scholarships for nice white kids? Passing into the grasping hands of those Pablos and Marias. If they hated their own country that much, they should go back and fix it up rather than fill up this one. Great burritos, though! She laughed obediently and prayed for no more red lights, not that she wanted to get where they were going anyway. There was only so much of Dad and his grievances that she could tolerate. How he managed to feel such a keen sting of persecution in what by world standards was a very privileged life remained a mystery. Educated, Caucasian, heterosexual, Christian, married, male, insured, and an overfed middle class homeowner . . . every time he ranted about people sucking the system dry, she bit her lip not to scream that he received a disability check every month.

  Big things are coming. This country had gotten itself mighty disorganized, but change was on its way. A million changes! Can you imagine those sorry faces when we send all of the Latinos back home, Zaley? We’ll keep a few for the burritos, but we won’t miss the rest of them. Zaley thought that the entire American agricultural system would, not to mention the rest of the industries that functioned off cheap labor. Unable to stay silent, she asked what was going to be done with the children of biracial families.

  “They’re going along,” Dad said, disgusted by the idea. “What does that make, a wetback and a white? A dampback! They can take their dampie kids.”

  Keeping her voice free of emotion, Zaley said, “Is it fair to send away kids who have grown up here and know nothing else?”

  “Fair? It’s their parents who should have thought about fair. America is for Americans! We’ll let Owl’s wife stay though, she makes homemade doughnuts for us every week, with a big cinnamon twist just for me. You can’t even tell their kids are a bunch of dampies and little Dragon’s got fire in his heart for Shepherds. I love that kid. Nah, they’re different, so they get a pass. We’ll keep our Froggie Fairie, too. Goddamn, he’s a tough fag, still got those bullets in him from Iraq. Lock the rest into Hollywood to pack fudge but Froggie Fairie’s got a killer punch! His little Lady Frog is this tiny dude, so you know who the woman is in their relationship.” He laughed and looked over so she had to laugh, too. “We’ll turn him on to women yet, buy him a lap dance for his birthday.”

  Her father was a stupid, crude, bigoted man, and she loathed him. Three hundred pounds and she didn’t think his brain weighed even one. Zaley hated being in the car with him, forced to listen to his bizarre philosophies, and then at base she was surrounded by people exactly like him.

  There were a few others like her among the younger Shepherds, only present at their parents’ insistence. Their salutes were not as crisp, their eyes wandered to cell phones during meetings, and they never showed up at Shepherd Youth Fun Nights. Zaley had been to a Fun Night at Dad’s command, ensconced in a theater with a group of teenagers who disrupted the movie from start to finish and dumped soda over the pair of empty seats reserved for Sombra C patrons. As they left, Panther opened his jackknife and slit the material of the seat cushions. She hated Panther. He was a handsome junior at Shore who often put his arm around her shoulders. Zaley was his girl, as all Cloudy Valley girls were his, and when were they going to go out? Everyone catcalled about Panther and Flamingo getting it on.

  Never. She didn’t belong to that creep just because they lived in the same city. Every time his arm crept over her shoulders, she wanted to vomit. Instead, she winced with imaginary pain and pulled away, apologizing for her injured arm. On the ride back to base from the movie (base being an office space rented out to Shepherds) he put his hand on her knee. She moved her legs away but the hand followed, so she looked out the window and pretended it belonged to Corbin. The thumb traveled back and forth over her skin, moving up and up until he was at her thigh, and she could not get out of that car fast enough.

  Fun Nights happened once a week, a tradition practiced by Shepherd youths all over the co
untry, but she’d only been to one through the month of February. Dad was gone more often than not through the day and into the evening, leaving the television on and heading out to attend to the needs of the organization. Sometimes he came back filthy and tired, other times on the phone talking enthusiastically about the lifeblood of the movement being the younger members. Energetic! Idealistic! Healthy! Not weighed down by bills and family yet! Just make sure they’re legal when recruiting, check those IDs for eighteen since it will save trouble. Zaley didn’t know what he was talking about then, but it definitely wasn’t the youth group. They were ages fourteen to seventeen. He walked past the home cooked meal on the table to his recliner, a Tic-Tac-Taco bag in his fist and still gabbing.

  As evening rolled to night on weekdays, he often went back out again. Zaley stayed very silent in her room while he readied to go, hoping that he wouldn’t remember her existence. She detested doing paces, avoiding Panther’s advances, standing around in the cold and dark, yawning all through class the next day. Once she was so desperate to not go that she hid in her closet and held her breath as he yelled her name. He opened the bedroom door and she prayed that nothing would crinkle under her feet. Figuring she must have magically teleported out of the house, he drove off alone.

  Which was fantastic, except it left her home with her mother.

  There was only so much that Zaley could be expected to swallow, and having her physical therapist changed behind her back was too far. She refused to go the week of finals to see the new woman, to accept her mother’s sabotage and move on. (I’m just not comfortable with a male physical therapist! Baby, we don’t know what kind of man he is. It’s my decision and that’s final.) Zaley had lost her temper entirely and screamed that unless she was shown his name on the California sex offender registry, he was her therapist and that was final!

  What the fuck did Mom think he was doing with Zaley in the gym with two to five other people always present? God, if he actually did ever make a pass, Zaley intended to take him up on it. She loved Daniel’s sweet spirit and the stories of his cat, his ability to tell when her arm could be pushed for more and when not. Every day she had woken up with a PT appointment on the schedule was a good day.

  It had been hard to read the increasingly hysterical texts from Mom about missed appointments while hiding at the library or somewhere downtown. Being at home was nightmarish with her storming and sobbing and threatening, the tight lips and silent treatment and tantrums. Didn’t Zaley want her arm to get better? Then she had to go to physical therapy! Zaley said sure, she’d be glad to see Daniel.

  After her last final on Friday, Mom was waiting outside the classroom to escort her to PT. They fought about it right there as lockers slammed and people threw wary glances. It must have looked incredibly stupid and selfish, the shock of the United States declaring war on its own population and a mother-daughter battle carrying on regardless. Zaley gave in from the public embarrassment, despising how her mother controlled her with a mere thimbleful of saltwater down her cheeks. The new PT accepted Mom’s answers to questions posited to Zaley, and encouraged her to observe in the gym. Mom was angry and embarrassed at how her daughter was sullen and quiet through the appointment. Had she actually expected Zaley to smile?

  Yes, she had. The lecture about bad manners lasted the whole way home. Zaley refused to say a word. Once in her room, she tore up the new exercise packet. She wasn’t going to do a damn one of them, let her arm atrophy or grow adhesions or fall off for all she cared. Though her arm didn’t hurt as much, with the exception of occasional tweaks, she still had pain pills left. Swallowing one, she thought that she should take anti-depressants. Then she could live here for the rest of her life and not care about her perpetual infancy. Make Mom happy by lying in bed helplessly day after day, covering the wall in shadow puppets and bouncing Baby Bootie on her chest. She wanted to die.

  She wanted to live.

  That thought startled her on Saturday morning at breakfast as Flight 48 screamed in the background. In her head, she had been going down with them. The scythe was swinging back and forth to take aim at her exposed throat along with theirs, drawing high to make that final drop, and Zaley’s impulse was to jerk away. It was a revelation.

  Her life was going to be bigger than the cage of this house. She knew that with the same surety of her own name. Rosalie Grace Mattazollo would set foot to the soil of every country in this world with a guy at her side and a child if she could stand it. The only place off-limits to their travels was this boarded-up house where nothing grew. Her mind on fire, Zaley spooned the last of the cereal into her mouth and imagined the world just waiting for her to turn eighteen. It was March now. She only had to make it to October.

  However, the way out was paved with money, and that meant a job. How could Mom stop her from working after graduation? She couldn’t. Zaley didn’t need a work permit signed by her parents once she graduated, even if she was still seventeen. Her Home Ec teacher had said that. The Cool Spoon always hired for summer, but she wouldn’t apply there. A sign was up in the window of Berry Berry Fresh and there was always one at Shor-Bee’s. A Shor-Whore, that’s what guys and girls alike called themselves for working there, shit pay for a shit job slinging shit burgers and fries, but it was pay.

  She’d save from July through September, and on the twelfth of October, her present would be a bus ride away to a new life. Why bother with a bus? Dad couldn’t kick her out if she was already leaving, so she’d have Corbin pick her up right in front of the house.

  Off to an apartment in Penger with its nubby carpet and plain white walls, and in spring she’d plant flowers and take an English literature class at the junior college. And when her mother texted fifty times a day, Zaley would write back that the daily limit was five, and after that, they’d be deleted. She would stick to it, too, and have an independent life like everyone else.

  “I thought maybe a movie today,” Mom was saying. Dad was off being a Shepherd somewhere, but the television was still shouting in his absence.

  “No,” Zaley said, hating to be disturbed from this fantasy of the future. The revelation that she wanted to live and the adrenaline coursing through her faded. “I’m going on a walk.”

  “Oh, an adventure! Where should we go?” We.

  “I’m going alone.” Zaley was spiraling down just as fast as she’d spiraled up. It was leave or stay in this house and blow her brains out. The clock was still ticking, ever ticking, down to that stream of zeroes when she imploded. For her own safety, she had to be away from the guns.

  She didn’t get to go alone, of course. Mom heard the quiet snickering of the locks being undone and caught Zaley trying to get out. Then she grabbed her purse and followed. What a cloudy day it was! A cloudy day for Cloudy Valley! A walk would do them good! Zaley, I’m tired of this attitude!

  As Zaley walked, the tempo of her feet beat out the chant I hate you I hate you I hate you. There was a big garage sale one block over, a family eager to sell everything they had to make money and drive to Canada. Racks of clothing, sofas and bed frames, bicycles and kayaks and tables and televisions, the lawn and driveway were covered. On the porch, a little boy and girl shot each other with toy guns, yelling, “War! War!” until their parents made them stop.

  It didn’t seem like anyone was at war. It was a cloudy and depressing day, but there weren’t planes in the sky dropping bombs. Mom gravitated to the table of craft items; Zaley went to furniture. People inspecting a recliner talked about how crazy it had been at stores yesterday. Men were arrested at Bulls-Eye for fighting over the last generator and another man at a gas station for trying to cut in line and pulling a knife when the person there argued.

  “Walking away from the house, Ned? How soon are you leaving?” a guy called.

  “Tomorrow morning or the next day, hopefully,” another guy replied.

  “Make sure you go before Tuesday! Big storm moving in. Sorry to see you go.”

  “Yeah, we’re sorry ours
elves. But both of us were laid off and we’re underwater on the loan. Missy’s parents have a dairy farm in Ontario. Hey, did you want a look at my tools? I’ve got some in back.”

  Zaley paused to inspect a desk among the pieces. Not as lovely as Micah’s but a perfectly serviceable desk, with a center drawer and three down the right side. Attached to the table was an organizer hutch, and it came with a chair. Testing every door, they opened smoothly to reveal clean and undamaged innards. Zaley could see herself at this desk doing her homework or surfing the Internet, searching for a new book on her digital reader. She wanted this desk. God, did she want it!

  It cost thirty dollars. She’d always raided the giant coin jar at home for money, cobbling together two or three dollars at a time. No one ever noticed the missing change. But thirty dollars was far, far more than she could pay. Running her hand over the smooth top of the desk, she thought about how it would look in her imaginary apartment.

  “Oh, that’s a dark color!” Mom said behind her.

  “I want it,” Zaley said quietly. “The desk I have is too low.”

  Mom shook her head in instant dismissal. “This one won’t match your room.”

  When they got home, Zaley went into her parents’ bedroom. Dad kept two guns in there, his prized shotgun in the closet, and his least favorite semi-automatic pistol in the bottom dresser drawer. One of his earlier purchases, the price couldn’t be beat. But it was an ugly gun and the longer he practiced, the less he liked the feel of it in his hand. So into the drawer it went. That was the one she liberated from beneath the stack of clothes he never wore. She didn’t think that he would suspect it was taken, not the one he hadn’t touched in months, and not when he so often shuffled and reshuffled all of his guns around the house, garage, and bunker. On the off chance he realized it was gone, he was much more likely to attribute it to some location he’d forgotten, not Zaley.