Had Elania gone completely feral, would he consider her human? Making weird animal calls, swatting at light, and trying to kill him? In the confinement point, he hadn’t really thought of the ferals as humans beating on the doors. They were savage creatures. Monsters. But once they had been Carlie Binder and Delmont Smith, regular people with regular lives. Even if those names didn’t exist in their brains any more, they still dwelled in the same bodies. Human bodies, animal minds . . . Austin didn’t know what they were, and Elania had died with her humanity intact. A sick human and getting sicker by the minute, but a human nonetheless.
These were hard questions and he was too tired for them. But his brain wouldn’t let him go to sleep. It was heartbreaking how much he’d fantasized about reaching the harbor today, just to have to ditch the car on the bridge. They were forty miles away from Sonoma, and that was an insane distance to walk.
The pioneers had walked across the whole of America, and they’d laugh at him for being a baby and whining over forty miles. They ate forty miles for dinner and crapped out sixty more while running from the Indians.
They hadn’t been likely to make the harbor today. There wasn’t the fuel to last the trip, and braces would have slowed them up. The paper Zaley had stolen from the confinement point didn’t list them much farther north than the bridge, and that information could be obsolete by now.
But he’d still pictured them pulling into the harbor, people coming forward to offer them food and beds and comfort. For some reason, his mind had insisted on inserting his mother into the crowd. She’d gotten over her fear of Sombra C and come to the harbor, hoping to find her son there. She asked Austin to forgive her. Then he hugged her and was just happy to be part of a family again. That was where the fantasy fell apart, because he could only suspend his disbelief to a point. I love you, Mamma.
Even in the dream, she didn’t reply. That was why Zaley had to stand-in as his mom. And her mother wouldn’t be at the harbor either, which was why Austin had to be the stand-in for hers. He didn’t think that he was doing that good of a job. Corbin did most of the things that Zaley needed.
“Ne-ne-ne-ne-ne-ne-ne-” A second feral was a lot closer to the minivan. He placed the kid’s rifle on the floor behind the passenger seat, where he could get it fast. His body’s reaction was to a monster, a wild animal, a beast. But the sound ululated from the throat of none of those things, only a destroyed human. That was what they were, not quite human, not forfeiting their credentials to slip down to animals, but destroyed humans. If the Zyllevir quit or ran out on Austin, he’d be destroyed, too.
He shouldn’t have gotten his heart set on reaching the harbor the way he had. He was just so ready for this to be over. To sleep in a bed regularly and eat good food, to not be chased around by Shepherds or ferals, those were the dreams he had hitched to the harbor in Sonoma. It was some consolation that they were over the Golden Gate Bridge. He’d seen people getting trampled on the walkway. The run had happened in slow motion to his perspective, Austin unable to get off the bridge fast enough and his lungs already filling up with the sea underneath.
People needed that bridge to get out of San Francisco. Whoever had brought a bomb to it was evil. If those had been T-BACS aiming to blow up the tollbooths, well, they needed to work on their aim. The sheer force of that dump truck exploding . . . Austin had expected the bridge to drop out from under his feet.
And now they were stuck with someone’s baby! The kid was going to cry and wake up Austin all night long. Micah should have shoved the kid in some other window and forced the people there to take him. It was Austin’s last grumpy thought before he went to sleep, punctuated by the pop of a gun from far away.
Occasionally in the night, cries did wake him, but none came from the boy in the trunk. No feral ever showed at the minivan either. Once Austin heard a crackle and his hand went to the rifle, but nothing else followed it.
When he woke in the early morning, it was to the sound of soft babbles and coos coming from the back. Since Austin hadn’t been kept awake by the kid’s cries and screams, he felt badly for being annoyed over it. Yesterday had just been so awful. Swimming would have been a better idea.
“Ahhhhhh.” The baby was happy. He didn’t know to be sad, and that was sad in a different way. He couldn’t have belonged to the woman who shut the window on him. The group was so big that they didn’t know everyone’s babies. So she had assumed some homeless zombie was trying to be sneaky in adding her baby to a group that had food and fuel. That chick was going to feel pretty shitty when the people in the van did a head count on the kids and came up short one.
It could have been the kid’s mom to shut the window in the baby’s face. If not, she certainly hadn’t been trying to get him out of the van. She had left that task to some eleven or twelve-year-old girl and there was no excuse. Austin’s mother and Mars’ mother could form a club for shitty moms.
The minivan smelled like farts. After checking around for ferals or other problems, he opened the door quietly to let it air out. Zaley was curled up on the driver’s side seat, automatically taking that position as she had in Tarley’s car. Corbin was on the passenger’s seat, his eyelids fluttering in dreams. Austin hoped the dreams weren’t about the confinement point. He still dreamed of the hill, opening his eyes to that sofa with Micah pressed against him, the sorting and the pounding on the doors, the smell of rot and the trash on the water. Carrying out the body of the frail old Japanese woman who wanted her son to come from Alameda and pick her up. You good boy. Your mama proud. No, Austin’s mamma wasn’t proud of him.
Outside the minivan, there was no one and nothing. No watchtowers, no fence, no dead bodies. There was just trash riding in on the wind and getting snagged by the scrub. Today they’d walk to Redfern and offload the kid. Then they’d see about these forty miles.
He peeked over the back of the seat and into the trunk. Micah was totally out, her hair splayed everywhere around her head. It reminded Austin of Medusa’s snakes. The baby saw him and broke into a wide, toothless smile. “Aaaaaaahhhhh.” His legs kicked enthusiastically.
Austin made a face at him. The smile got even bigger. “Aaaaahhhhhhh!”
Poor dude. Mars and Austin belonged to the Sons of Shitty Moms club. Austin lowered his head and popped up. Two blue eyes filled with glee. “Aaaahhhh!” Then Mars broke into froggy laughter. The next time Austin did it, the baby bellowed in joy and woke up everyone in the car. Austin pretended that he had had nothing to do with it. It was fun making the kid laugh.
Their day got underway with pee time and the distribution of breakfast. If only they had a microwave! Austin really wanted to break into the cups of instant noodles, but lukewarm water wasn’t going to soften them. Instead he opened up microwave cups of tiny brown beans and chunks of franks. It was already cooked, just not hot. Corbin grimaced at his. He didn’t like food that reminded him of the confinement point, but his hunger always won out over his memories.
Micah was feeding the baby from the last bottle, but Mars was far more interested in the spoonfuls that Austin was extending to Micah’s mouth. Didn’t babies his age hold their own bottles? This one didn’t. With one hand lodged in Micah’s blue and brown hair, he kept breaking away from the milk to wave his other hand around in pursuit of the spoon. Finally, Micah set the bottle aside and sat him up in her lap. She cupped a handful of the beans, squashed them up a little with her finger, and the baby almost attacked them. In no time at all, they were both covered in goo. A lot hadn’t even gotten into the baby’s mouth but dribbled down his flower shirt. Micah picked off the spit-covered beans and ate them. That was sick. When Austin made a disgusted face, Micah just smiled and ate another one.
“I already have it all planned out what I’m going to say for a toast when you get married, Micah,” Austin said.
“That the groom is the luckiest man in the world?” Micah said conceitedly. “That’s what you’re supposed to say as my best friend.”
“No,”
Austin said. “I’m just going to look at him and shake my head, fill my champagne glass to the brim and hold it up high, and say I’m sorry, man. I’m so damn sorry. And I will be sorry.” Corbin laughed and raised an imaginary glass. Austin would give that dope of a groom one free session to a therapist as a wedding present, or a case of nice wine. Micah was going to drive the dude bonkers, unless he was one point off the normal scale himself. Then they would complement each other. That was better, but also sort of frightening.
The toast didn’t hurt her feelings, which was the only reason he’d give it. As Mars fisted food into his mouth, Micah said, “Next feeding, I’ll offer him a mash.”
There wasn’t going to be a next feeding. It wasn’t that far to Redfern. Corbin called, “What if he chokes on those? Are babies that young even supposed to eat beans?”
“They do if they want to live,” Micah said in a singsong to Mars. Austin inspected their food and water stores, coming to the sorry conclusion that it wasn’t going to see them forty miles. The pioneers laughed hysterically in his head. They’d just had a big breakfast in Missouri and gnawed on some buffalo jerky and shoe leather until they pulled up in California. That made Austin smile, imagining women in bonnets and bearded men all standing around in judgment on kids being such wussies these days.
“Ugh,” Micah said once breakfast was over. She passed the baby to Austin and let herself out of the trunk, still needing her turn to pee and also to scrape off the mess of food from her skin.
The baby was getting fussy. Before closing the trunk, Micah said, “Your turn to change him.”
That bitch. She’d timed it that way on purpose. Austin put the sticky baby on the seat so he could snag a fresh diaper and wipes from the bag. “Are you crying because you took a dump in your pants?” Austin asked Mars. “I’d cry if I took a dump in my pants.”
But the baby wasn’t really crying, just having a fuss. Austin made a face but failed to charm him with it. Pants pulled off, diaper peeled free, and Austin discovered the kid had just pissed himself and left a tiny piece of poo in the diaper. The size of it was almost polite, as if he didn’t want to inconvenience Austin the way he had done so with Micah and his massive shit of the day before.
Turning over, Mars almost spilled himself over the side. Austin let out a yell and caught him. The kid yelled back at being prevented from giving himself a concussion. Micah opened the door at the baby’s head and said, “Everything okay?”
“Mars wants to roll,” Austin said.
“A planet needs to orbit, Aussie,” Micah said. She offered the sheriff’s badge, Mars grabbing it and inserting a point into his mouth. Then Micah returned to cleaning herself off outside and Austin got the wipes. Catching the kid’s feet in one hand, he tilted Mars up and wedged the wipe between his butt cheeks. That seemed a little rude, even if it had to be done with babies. Here, you lay there while I wipe something cold and slippery up your ass crack! Why in the world are you trying to get away?
The poo was so polite that it had barely left a smear on its way out. Austin thought about sneaking a wipe for himself. It had been a long time since they had had access to a proper bathroom.
“I did it,” he said in triumph once the fresh diaper was on. He lifted the baby to show him off to Corbin and Zaley. That was the first diaper Austin had ever done. The kid looked downright spanky in the brilliant whiteness, cartoon characters marching around the band over his ass.
“It’s on backwards,” Corbin said.
“What? No, it’s not.” Austin turned the baby around. Yes, it was. The part over the kid’s front had more of a pooch than the one around his butt. It was a tiny difference. If diaper companies wanted to be helpful, they should make diapers with FRONT written on the front and BACK on the back. Or the front could be blank and the back could have a tail hanging off it. Different kinds of animal tails. That would be cute.
He left the diaper the way it was after the baby tried to roll off the seat a second time. The yowling when he was stopped from braining himself got on Austin’s nerves. Kids had no sense of self-preservation, or gratitude when someone was trying to help them out. The pants went back on and Austin wiped off the baby’s sticky face and shirt. The face came clean; the shirt didn’t. Chasing a bean down the collar, Austin found a tag that read REBECCA. “He’s a cross-dresser or wearing someone else’s shirt. Everyone, this is Rebecca.”
“Bet that group jammed him into clothes willy-nilly, threw everything in the vans and peeled out when they learned the bridge was open,” Corbin said. “Or he barfed on himself when they were leaving and that was just the shirt that was closest.”
Zaley was studying the map. “This path should take us right to the base of Redfern.”
Firefighters or cops no doubt had a procedure about what to do with abandoned babies. So would doctors at a hospital. And for all of the years to come, Austin would know that there was a dude in the world who was also enrolled in the Sons of Shitty Moms Club. It was one thing to know that in theory, and quite another to know it up close and personal. One day their paths could cross again. Austin wouldn’t tell him about the polite poo or the diaper on backwards, or that the kid had been a cross-dresser. No need in embarrassing someone who was a compatriot. That poor kid was going to be in the same pain that Austin was about his mother.
Picking up Mars or Rebecca or Marcien or whoever this was, Austin put the kid in his lap. Corbin leaned over the center console and poked his finger into the kid’s tummy. “Hi, Mars.”
The baby looked worried. Then Micah returned and sat beside Austin. She took Mars when the little arms reached out for her. Austin teased, “Who’s Mars’ mommy?”
“I like kids,” Micah said. “Elania brought her brothers into the Cool Spoon a lot last summer and we had a great time.”
“He hates Corbin though,” Austin said. He couldn’t sting Micah that way. She didn’t mind young children. He’d seen that at the Cool Spoon hundreds of times. It was adults who came in with an attitude that she couldn’t stand. The way she used to secretly lick their cones if they were being assholes still grossed him out. Served with a shit-eating smile.
“He doesn’t hate me,” Corbin was saying defensively. “Kids around this age go through a stranger phase. People they don’t know freak them out. It isn’t personal. It’s just separation anxiety.” It was personal. Micah and Austin were just as much of strangers to the kid, and he thought they were great.
“Don’t hate Corbin,” Austin said to Mars. “I know. He dated Sally Wang. That’s a major point against him. But we can’t hold it over his head forever. Trust me, Corbin is a nice guy.”
“Boooooo! Baaaaaah,” Mars answered.
“Brick,” Micah said. “Good boy! Baaaaaa-rick.”
“Ball,” Corbin corrected. “You shouldn’t be allowed around children.”
They covered up their stamps, cleaned their stuff out of the minivan, and hit the trail. The terrain was mostly flat, and when it did climb, the grade wasn’t too bad. Sporadically, they had views of the Golden Gate Bridge, the ocean, and San Francisco. It was odd to see the city when this place was so remote. Austin’s mood lifted. They were closer to the harbor than yesterday.
A sign warned them to stay on the trail, a line through a picture of a person atop a horse and a second line through one of a person on a bicycle. But the sign hadn’t been placed in this spot originally. It had been yanked out of the ground from somewhere else and dumped here, which was why it was flat on the ground rather than standing up, and there was no hole by the post.
The breeze was chilly and they stopped to put on more clothes. Micah draped a sweatshirt around the baby and rolled up the sleeves. He was lost in it, and mad because he’d dropped his star. Wiping off the spit-soaked thing, Austin returned it.
Firefighters would be nice to a baby. Too bad the four of them didn’t have a basket to put him in. That would stop him from orbiting away when they put him on the ground. Austin would watch from the distance until s
omeone opened the door and discovered Mars there, gathered him up and took him in.
Although no smoke was in the air, the scent of fire was strong. The star was dropped again and Austin got it back. He wiped it off and stuck it in his pocket. The kid was now engaged in an examination of Micah’s hair, a tiny stylist who didn’t know what to make of the blue streaks. Austin waved one of the baby’s hands in the air and cried, “Darling! You can’t use those cheap, over-the-counter dye sprays! I’ve told you a hundred times! Look at these split ends.”
“Fuck you, baby, it’s my hair!” Micah said in total umbrage. Mars chortled. Corbin and Zaley exchanged incredulous looks at how they were speaking to an infant. That was funny. The kid wasn’t going to remember a thing about this little misadventure in his life, whether they said nothing but fuck or sang the A-B-C song.
After a mile, Micah passed the baby to Austin and stretched out her arms. Austin tipped his head so his hair could be inspected. His wasn’t deemed as interesting as long blue hair, but the sheriff’s star was. Gnawing on it, Mars lashed out for the blonde hair swinging over Zaley’s back. Austin offered Mars to her. “Do you want to hold him, Zaley?”
“No, thanks,” Zaley said.
“It’s sibling rivalry,” Micah said. “Zaley’s used to being the baby.”
“Oh, go fuck yourself, Micah.”
The Zombies: Volumes One to Six Box Set Page 126