The tents thinned and he was gratified at a split in the road coming up. It was just like the map had shown. They wanted the one that went straight east, not the one dipping south. Farther on there would be another split going north and east, and that was when they’d go north. He had memorized the image.
The ground was still layered in garbage, and a joker had hung a sign on a bush that read BATHROOM with an arrow pointing down to the ground. Austin took out his flashlight and listened nervously for sounds of zombies. All he heard was the noise from Hard Times, and wild, distant laughter coming from far ahead. That had to be Crazy Town. It was a crazy kind of laugh. Elania stopped walking and he said, “Are you okay?”
“I don’t know where . . .” Elania looked around in confusion.
She hadn’t looked at the maps with them. Explaining the splits in the road, the eventual path through the golf course they would take and the roads beyond that to the car, Austin guided her on. The confinement point had broken Elania’s brain. She needed her mom and dad, and a therapist to stop her from closing in on herself.
At the second split, they went north. It wasn’t a straight north, more of a northwest meander through trees and the golf course. No one could use it for a game now. Another camp appeared on the green, packed with tents and families. Two big Mexican men were standing on the path and watching them come. One had a gun and the other a flashlight. The flashlight was lifted to shine in their faces, Elania yanking her head away and Austin throwing his hand up to block the beam. He wanted to cover his neck, but his leg hurt from the pinch. A person without a stamp didn’t walk around with a hand shielding his neck. Once upon a time, Austin had been that person.
The guy holding the gun spoke to them in Spanish. One word was loco. Micah said, “No loco. Ph.D. No problem.”
The guys let them pass. Corbin said, “Did they think we were crazy?”
“They’re guarding Little Mexico from the crazies,” Micah said. “I guess. I took French.” Austin had taken two years of Spanish, but the guy had spoken too quickly for him to translate and Elania hadn’t tried though she had had three years.
Little Mexico wasn’t very different from Hard Times. Kids were crying and dogs barking, there was laughing and arguing and fires burning brightly. Not everyone was Mexican. A lot of people were Asian and a few Caucasians were sprinkled in. Micah split to the path that pierced through the heart of the camp. Someone was yelling, “Shut up! Shut up!” to the inhabitants of a very noisy tent.
“What you want here?” a guy shouted in an accent to Corbin.
“Nothing,” Corbin said. “Ph.D.”
“Then you give me money,” he demanded from where he was sitting on an overturned bucket. Austin worried that they were going to have to fight to pass by, but the guy never got up. Men with guns and flashlights stood all around the periphery of the camp.
Corbin said, “Where the hell are we going to sleep?”
“We can wait out the night in Ph.D.,” Austin said. The trees along the rim of the green were every type but what could be climbed. It was getting hard to see them.
At the end of the camp, a pair of young teenaged boys blocked the path and shouted, “Give us money or we’ll beat you up!”
Micah pointed an arrow at them. “Get the fuck out of our way or I’ll put a hole in you!” They yelled and ran off. An old woman cackled by a fire. Elania stopped walking and Austin pulled her on.
The sky was purple as they moved north and west with the twists of the path through the golf course. Solar lights shined down on another fleet of blue-backed turtles and portable toilets. Music was playing from several tents, and the song they created together was a jangling one. It smelled of marijuana. Austin had smelled that from the other camps, too. People milled around the tents, or ate from plates balanced on their knees. Most everyone was college-aged, but there were handfuls of children and older people mixed in.
A strain of music was different from the others, sweeter and more real. A guy was playing a violin between a tent and an overturned plastic pool. Yellow ducks swam upside down on the side. That was someone’s home now, a crappy kiddie pool that had a crack along it. Long ago, Austin felt poor when he lived in a dinky apartment while Micah lived in a mansion, the others in houses, but true poverty was living beneath a pool. The person under there would have taken Austin’s apartment in a heartbeat and felt rich.
“Looking for Crazy Town, you head the other way,” a woman said. “We don’t want you here if you’re crazy.”
“Just looking for a safe place to crash for the night,” Micah said. “And not with crazies. No problem.” They stopped on the path as two women dragged a tent over it.
“Aw, you come on in here. I got an extra bed roll,” a guy said. Micah pointed an arrow at him.
As he held up his hands in mock alarm, a girl called, “Shut your hole, Gregory! There isn’t anything in your undies but a pair of rolled-up socks.” The violinist laughed and strummed, each note piercing through Austin in a way the recorded music didn’t. Micah lowered the bow. It was a reaction from the confinement point. The guy had offered it in a lewd but not truly serious way.
“Don’t the cops bust these camps up?” Corbin asked.
“Sure, they did once,” said the guy who had invited Micah into his tent. “We just came back. Where are we going to go? School’s closed and we can’t fly home.”
An older man said, “You should rent a car. Some of you kids are just choosing to be out here.”
The guy slapped his knee and said with sarcasm, “Why didn’t I think of that? Rent a car! Except I did think of that. Nobody’s renting cars without the Internet, I only got ten bucks, and I’m not old enough to rent a car. The place I called said that I had to be twenty-five, so I’m six years shy.”
“Where the hell did you get ten bucks? I want ten bucks!” someone exclaimed from within a tent. The women moving the tent got out of the way, and the four of them walked on.
Once they had a little distance to the Ph.D. camp, they stopped and Corbin said, “Risk it on the grass by the tents? Or risk it in those trees up ahead? It’s getting too dark for us to walk.”
Austin had accepted with no good grace that they wouldn’t get to the car tonight. He didn’t even think that they had gone a full mile. “No one seems freaked out about zombies here.”
“The car?” Elania asked.
“No,” Micah said. “Once it’s totally dark, people will hear us walking around and think we’re zombies or crazy people. The latter is the one they’re really worried about. We’ll get shot.”
Without a single tree that it was possible to climb, they’d have to sleep on the ground. They stopped at the toilets and chose a patch of trees to weather the night. The sky sank to blackness as they settled down to eat energy bars. Lights still shined from Ph.D. and the rest of the golf course was mostly lost to darkness.
First watch belonged to Austin. He didn’t trust himself to stay awake in a later one. The gun in his lap, he rested against the trunk of a tree. Trash crinkled under his legs and he kicked candy wrappers aside. If he had to pee later on, he was doing it out here. The waste had been so high in the portable toilet he’d been inside that it nearly crested the seat.
The music and voices floated over from the camp. Micah and Corbin stretched out on the stolen blanket and fell asleep. Each of them had a towel for warmth. The four hadn’t had anything to say to one another after watch times were confirmed, not from anger but lack of need. This sucked. They wanted to be in the car. Was Zaley okay? Would they make it to the harbor? When you were all thinking the same things, there wasn’t a reason to voice them.
Austin touched the hem of the blanket and thought about the difference between stealing it and when he’d stolen another blanket from that dude’s house weeks ago. He’d had no reaction to stealing this one. They needed it. He’d gone around the entire motel room that way, judging everything it held for if it would be useful to them. Yes to the toilet paper and tissu
es. No to the armchair and footstool. Yes to the shower caps in case they had to keep something dry, and yes to the towels and washcloths. He had even considered the curtains for blankets. They were just too heavy to carry.
Micah had taken the tea bags in the amenities basket and the ice bucket; Corbin stripped the television remote of its batteries and helped himself to the wire hangers in the closet. The Bible in the nightstand was left behind. Austin had lifted it up, intending to take it, but stealing a Bible was the only step in his mind that went too far. If someone to stay in that room in the future was hurting and needed Jesus, it was shitty of Austin to leave that drawer in the bedside table bare. He’d kissed the cover and set it back.
Still sitting up, Elania was staring out to the sand pits far away. A light along the path was flickering dimly by them, and the other ones were dark. They had gotten a lot of sleep over the last five days so Austin wasn’t that tired either. He watched her now and then as time passed. It was post-traumatic stress disorder, Elania and her quiet, Corbin and the window, Micah and her suicide attempt. Austin had asked three times in the afternoon if Elania wanted to send a postcard to her family, address it to the Sonoma Harbor and pray it made it there. She just shook her head and ignored him when he pressed.
If everything went well, they could arrive at the harbor tomorrow. He didn’t believe that they were going to be so lucky. The braces made everything that much harder and slower. A week, two weeks . . . Elania should have sent a postcard ahead to let them know she was on her way. But when you were depressed, everything appeared to be an insurmountable challenge. He should have just sent one for her, but he had been annoyed at the time about how she ignored him.
He couldn’t be annoyed at her. She needed him to be nice. All of them needed that. It was hard to remember when Austin was going up and down on a seesaw. He felt badly for being out of the confinement point when everyone else was still there. He felt badly for living when Casper and Clarissa and so many others had died. Austin should feel happy all the time for escaping, but the happiness was tempered with guilt.
Even if your body left a confinement point, your mind didn’t completely come along. Part of it was there forever. A shadow of him would always be in the tree, watching that street so close and so far away; his other shadows were under the sofa and blocking the doors, in line on the bridge and watching Jerry and his twins get shot.
He hadn’t gone to the confinement point whole either. A shadow of him was forever at the party; a shadow of him was at the hospital, standing in shock over his belongings that his mother had dropped off after his diagnosis. Austin had left shadows everywhere. So had Micah. That was why she’d tried to kill herself. Too much of her shadow was in the confinement point. Zaley had wanted to kill herself because she’d lost too much of her shadow in her own home. If you lost too big of a piece somewhere, that was what happened.
He would keep watch all night long and let the others rest. Then he wouldn’t have to worry about Micah having the gun on her watch, or Corbin getting triggered by something innocuous. Austin could sleep in the car when they drove to Sonoma tomorrow, and pray to open his eyes to the harbor. Wake up, Austin! We’re here.
Some of the music in the camp turned off, but the violin played on in a nostalgic song. Snatches of conversation came over occasionally from people going to the toilets, names of schools that had closed, majors of biology and art history and political science. Twice there were gunshots. They were distant and no one got excited. If they weren’t excited, then Austin wouldn’t be excited. He took in their nonchalance and made it his own.
A man staggered down the path to Ph.D., yelling at the top of his lungs, “It’s Chemtrails, man! That’s what got all this Sombra C started! They did this to us!” Tents unzipped and the plastic pool lifted. People surged to the path, the solar lights joined by flashlights and shining off guns. One girl had a sword, an actual sword, which glinted in the dim lighting.
“Move the fuck along or we’ll shoot you!” a huge man bellowed. He was the one to have exited the cracked kiddie pool.
Ten people with weapons seemed to pierce through the guy’s craziness. Spinning on his heel drunkenly, he wobbled back the way he’d come. Then he bellowed to the stars, “They were in on it! They were all in on it! And so were you!”
The girl with the sword yelled, “Do we have to do this over and over with you? It’s every goddamned night!”
“You fucking collapsed my tent two days ago, you asshole!” someone else hollered. Still ranting and raving, the crazy guy took a turn to Little Mexico. Micah turned over, roused a little by the ruckus, and Austin put his hand to her head soothingly. Elania was oblivious. Her head had sagged down to her chest. She had fallen asleep sitting up.
Another guy came along the path and held up his hands in fright at the guns and sword. A tent dropped from his armpit. The kiddie pool man told the guy that he was welcome to pull up a piece of turf if he wasn’t a damn loon. The guy reassured him that he wasn’t. In correct but halting words, he explained that he was a college student from China stranded here. A young woman addressed him in Chinese and suddenly the two spoke at a rapid pace to one another. Then she said in English, “He’s okay. Call him Toby.” As everyone returned to the tents, she walked him over to the toilets and motioned to some unclaimed ground. Toby set up his tent there. It was one of the easy kinds that just had to be shaken to life.
The camp quieted further. The sky darkened to a dead color. Austin hoped that Zaley was all right out there. The Shepherds could have recognized her at one of the braces . . . the traitor Grace Leigh who skipped out on duty . . . or as Zaley Mattazollo the runaway girl . . .
No, he wouldn’t think about that. Zaley was okay. When Micah had outed him, Zaley just gave him a hug and said they’d find him a nice boy instead of a nice girl. That was what his real mother should have done, and it made him feel stupid for keeping the secret from Zaley for so long. She didn’t care that he was gay any more than he cared that she was straight. Zaley was okay because she had to be okay for Austin’s sake.
He wanted a nice boy, a sweet one to love him, and for him to love in return. Ten minutes passed, then half an hour, more than that while he thought about it. The world had gone to bed.
Trash rustled. Elania had gotten up and was walking away. Softly, Austin called, “Where are you going?”
It had to be midnight. She was walking in the opposite direction of the toilets, out to the green and sand pits where there was nothing. She hadn’t taken the flashlight. Sleepwalking. He’d only ever seen that on television. Calling her name, he got up and flicked on the flashlight to follow. Just as he caught up to her, it illuminated a hole in the ground too late and he stumbled into it. Elania turned around as he stepped hard on his left foot to stop himself from falling. The flashlight jerked up and for a second he shined the beam directly in Elania’s face.
She snarled at him.
He reeled away in shock. Then it was gone and she stared at him blankly.
It had just been the slightest curl of lip and narrowing of eyes, an exhalation that came out in a hiss through her clenched teeth. Speechlessly, he stared at her. The blankness faded and she said, “Austin?”
She had taken her Zyllevir. He’d watched! His lips worked over silent words. That expression of hers was unmistakable, Sombra C edging up to a higher viral load and she could not be getting worse when she was taking her medicine . . . this wasn’t true but he had to believe it.
Elania blurted, “Don’t tell.” His horror was reflected in her face. She was in horror that he knew.
“The last pill didn’t have enough in it,” Austin said in desperation. “You just have to take another one.”
“No . . .” Elania said as he raced to their campsite. The others were so asleep that they hadn’t noticed the two leaving, or him coming back. Jerking up the backpack with the bottle of Zyllevir inside, he returned to Elania at a dash. The zipper yanked down and the bottle pulled out, he dove in
for a bottle of water.
Popping off the lid from the Zyllevir, he tried to pour a single pill into his palm. Three fell out. As he tipped his hand to slide two in, he reconsidered. Three was good. All four of them should take an extra dose. Everyone could have gotten duds.
He put the pills in Elania’s hand and uncapped the water. “Take all of these! It’ll stop the infection from getting any worse.”
“Austin . . .”
“Take them!” he said frantically.
“Austin, they won’t help,” Elania said. Her voice was thick. “Zyllevir has stopped . . . it’s stopped working for me. I’ve known for . . .” her chest hitched as she spoke, “I’ve known for days now, but it started days before that. I can’t . . . Austin, I can’t find myself any more.”
He lifted her palm to her mouth in encouragement. “We’re in San Francisco, going through a golf course to get to the car. Zaley had to drive through braces. Then we’re crossing the Golden Gate Bridge and hauling ass to that harbor. Your whole family is there, Elania,” he said, and his voice trembled plaintively. “So take these, and we’ll get you there.”
She wasn’t that high in infection. She couldn’t be! Her eyes were still moving together and she wasn’t lurching . . . but everyone devolved at a different pace and her steps had been so hesitant today . . . the sunlight had bothered her and that was why she spent so long in the restroom at the gas station. Her knee was a little stiff and he’d blamed sitting in the car for ages. They were all stiff and sore from the confinement point! It didn’t mean anything!
Yet it had been days.
He knew that snarl . . . The blood pushing through his heart was cold. He bumped her hand to her mouth. “Swallow them.” She obeyed and he said, “It will stop. I promise.”
Her eyes filled with pity at how hard he was trying to believe it. “My left knee is feeling strange. I can’t ever stretch it out. Sunlight bothers me more and more. Austin . . . I remember archways . . . and I don’t know what they’re from. I see them in my head all the time . . . they’re important to me somehow.”
The Zombies: Volumes One to Six Box Set Page 112