It was a beautiful day as they walked through the southern part of Sausalito. Every step was carrying Austin closer to that wonderful place called Arquin. It couldn’t be anything as grand as his dreams. But Zyllevir! In his handful of turns with the kayak, all he had been able to think about through those dreary hours was how soon his life was going to end. It hadn’t seemed real and had seemed much too real all at the same time. When he was with everyone else, he couldn’t think about it to the same degree. There were too many distractions. Alone and those thoughts ate at him.
He had to keep living for his son.
The clouds were ribbons in the sky, soft and coiled over each other upon the blue wrapping. The baby was a warm lump in the carrier on his chest. People checked them over as they walked by campsites, some fearful at the weapons. They relaxed to see the baby, and that Austin and his friends were just passing through. One man put a hand to the gun at his waist, letting them know that he had a weapon of his own. A few people were going through bags from the relief truck, and a girl was clamoring in excitement at the box of cereal. The mom saw them coming and told the girl to put it away, afraid that they might be about to lose it. She couldn’t see the joy in Austin’s heart, how good it felt to be moving to the base. The last thing on his mind was stealing a box of cereal from a kid, or anyone.
He had a backpack laden with food, clothes and blankets and the tent bumping against his shoulders. Hidden at the very bottom of the backpack was Mars’ favorite Pocket Animal. Micah had insisted on leaving everything behind except the star, she’d been a total bitch about it, but Mars really liked that stuffed toy. Pocket Animals had gotten popular after Austin was too old for them. They were weird, mutated things: zebra stripes on a lion’s body and the ears of a dog on one, a long giraffe neck that attached to something blue and otter-shaped on another. Mars had a zillion of them, and his favorite of the bunch was a fat red bird with a blue platypus bill that was good to chew, bushy black eyebrows and floppy feet. Attached to its back was a clip for a key ring and under its bill was written its name. Birdipus. Although Austin had considered cutting off the key clip to keep Mars from chewing on it, he’d only ever shown interest in the bill. They couldn’t take everything of his to Arquin, but Austin couldn’t bring himself to ditch the beloved bird thing. The animal was just big enough that they didn’t have to worry about Mars swallowing it whole.
Corbin was pestering Zaley to tell him if her backpack got too heavy, and she was telling him over and over that it was fine. That was because Corbin expressed his love through service. Austin had gotten that out of the women’s magazine quiz. He’d taken it for all of them to while away the time during Mars’ naps. Although he couldn’t be positive that he’d gotten every question right for them, he was pretty sure that Corbin and Zaley scored close together. Love was care, often unspoken and concerning little matters like an arm massage or reaching into the tent for an extra pair of socks. Those two weren’t going to write each other flowery poems or sing a proposal in the center of a packed stadium. Their love was in those repeated offers to take the backpack.
Austin had scored in the expression range. Love was surprise to him, a card on the table, an invitation to dinner. He wanted the stadium proposal, the big gesture that caught him off-guard and woke him up to something new. Micah had been completely impossible to test. The best results he could come up with for her were in the experience range, a guy who showed her new ways to mess around and get in trouble.
Walking up the road, they made it to town. The off-ramp closer to the pier had become a sea of parked cars and people, so it was riskier to walk there than to go this way. The best thing about Sausalito was the serious lack of Shepherds. No one braced the roads or stomped around the campsites waving guns, checking necks, and giving saliva tests. He had been heartened to hear a couple that briefly camped nearby having an argument one afternoon, the man yelling, “You want to know why we’re living in a tent? It’s because of those fools with sheep crook patches, not zombies! You shouldn’t have donated a dime to them!” The woman had defended herself, but her voice got tinier and tinier as the argument continued.
Still, Austin hadn’t seen much of Sausalito until today. Even without a noticeable Shepherd presence, he had been too nervous to stroll around. Cosmetics were such a thin barrier. One stray scratch, one splash of water . . . it wasn’t worth the risk. So now he was enjoying something new. He waffled between sidewalks to go on, the one that ran along the water or the one by the houses. Since he had seen lots of water, he voted for the other one. Some of the houses were stunning, reaching high overhead in their upper stories and with big windows. Through the glass doors on the first story of one house was a spiral staircase, which looked wonderful until you had to carry groceries up it for two or three trips. No one had broken into that place. It had a tall gate and a wall covered in a sheet of bougainvillea.
“When exercise plans fail,” Micah pronounced grandly from another house. That one was also behind a locked gate. Beside the staircase was a treadmill. The conveyor belt was covered in fake plants. Vines were twirled around the handrails and covered the display. Glass was spread around the ground from a broken window on the second floor. A sign by the door warned that the owner had a gun.
The houses quickly traded out for businesses. Some had been looted and others were untouched. No one had bothered the art gallery, which had a dozen examples of bland hotel art on display in the front windows. The little grocery store looked like a bomb had gone off inside. There wasn’t a calorie left in it. Mars stretched out his leg as they peeked in and Austin caught his foot. “Gotcha! Dada gotcha!”
“Daaaaaaa.” Kids didn’t just master words and use them all the time after that. Sometimes Austin got a dada out of Mars, other times just a daaaa. But when Micah said where’s Dada, Mars looked to Austin more often than not. Once Austin said where’s Mama, and Mars looked to Birdipus. They had laughed their heads off about that.
Austin had thought that their meeting on the bridge was a bad mistake, and that Mars should go to someone else. Now he cringed to remember it, convinced that they had come together on purpose. Sombra C had taken away Austin’s mother, but it had also given him a son. He’d lost family and regained it, just in a new form. Mars had been a gift from God to Austin and Micah both, but he hadn’t recognized it as fast as she had. God had done that so Austin wasn’t in so much pain. Although He couldn’t open his mother’s closed heart, He had given an open heart in the baby’s. Austin had a tie to the world again through this little boy. So did Mars after his community in those blue vans gave him the boot.
Austin would never, ever give up Mars. The baby was his family. That word meant a lot more to Austin than it had to his mother, who booted people out of her life right and left. Mars wasn’t his flesh or his blood but his heart. He slammed through the fence of that confinement point and heard the disbelieving, relieved cry of Daddy! The little tow-headed form dashed over the bridge and into his arms. The bullets flying toward them pinged off the protective shell of Austin’s love.
Was he sure this was his baby? Up yours, frowning lady. The kid knew what was what.
The waterfront was littered with closed seafood restaurants. They were making Austin hungry. So many meals had been laid down on those empty tables behind the glass. When Corbin had to stop to shake a pebble out of his shoe, which led to having to take his whole shoe off and dig around under the insert for it, Austin walked to a blue and white restaurant over the water for a better look. A walkway extended around the building. Blue and white chairs on it faced out to the view. The building itself had broken windows from people going in to find food. The tables and chairs in there hadn’t been budged an inch, but a lot of the plate settings were gone. Only one napkin was left, folded into a water glass. He’d bet the rest of the napkins had been turned into diapers, pinned and stapled around infant waists.
“Dammit,” Corbin said about his shoe. “Sorry, guys. I’ll be done soon.”
“Just walk on it,” Micah said.
“I can’t walk on it. It’s stabbing me with every step.”
A menu was posted by the front doors. “Look at this, baby boy!” Austin read it out loud, his hand resting on the soft blond hair. “Cilantro lime prawn salad. Baked Canadian lobster tail with lemon butter. Spinach and artichoke ravioli. Sound good to you?” It sounded magnificent to Austin. Mars just grunted.
The door was cracked open. Since Corbin was still engaged in battle with his shoe, Austin nudged it further and the two peered inside. No one was in there, so they went in. The kid’s rifle was slack in his hand. The walls had pictures of boats and flowers. The ceiling was white and clean, no spiders having moved in yet to replace the wait staff and patrons. Austin stood among the tables and gazed out the windows to the bay.
He wanted to sit in a booth and lean back into the cushion, but he had the backpack on one side and the baby on the other. “You know what we’ll do, Marsie? We’ll come back here one day when it’s safe and eat lunch.” No kids’ menu for his boy. Mars was going to select a meal off the regular one, his froggy little voice carrying his order up to the waiter’s ears. He wasn’t going to be the brat sulking in the chair because he wasn’t getting chicken nuggets, or a hamburger and fries. One of the things that Mamma had done right was teach Austin to appreciate good food. He would do the same with Mars. There was more to taste of this world than school cafeteria pizza-nachos-hamburger and fast food junk.
“Austin?” Zaley called from the door. “We’re ready to go.”
“We’re coming here one day when everything is better,” Austin said. Years from now. His stamp would evanesce, breaking down in his skin and pissing out into a toilet. He followed Zaley outside. Corbin had his shoe on again, and was picking his new bow up off the ground.
The salty air held a whiff of shit. The baby had taken a dump. Lifting him out of the carrier, Austin said, “Corbin, you used to work at Mr. Foods, right?”
“You know I did,” Corbin said.
“Then you’re just the man for the job.” Thrusting out the wriggling form, Austin announced brightly, “Clean-up on aisle two!”
Corbin was confused until he inhaled. Then he grinned and exclaimed, “That’s sick, man!”
Everything took longer with a baby. They returned to the empty restaurant and Austin changed him in a booth. Corbin and Zaley took a table by the window and Micah didn’t go off exploring. She’d been in this place before.
It was an apocalypse in a diaper. They had run out of wipes long ago, so Austin dampened a rag to clean off the kid’s shitty crack. He was going to leave the dirty diaper and rag on the table, having an ample supply of both and the smell so pungent that he didn’t want to pack it away in their spare plastic bag. The sinks weren’t working in the kitchen to wash it either.
“You are too little to make that big of a smell,” Austin informed Mars. “That’s a man’s smell. Dial it down for now. You’ve got time.” When the fresh diaper was on, he blew a raspberry on Mars’ tummy to make him giggle and squirm. The drool was getting copious lately, so Austin unpacked a second diaper to use as a chin wipe. As he did, the baby rolled over and crawled down the booth cushion to escape. He wasn’t too fast yet.
Austin wanted to show him the bird toy, but it had to be a secret from Micah for now. She was being too adamant about unnecessary weight. If there had been more places to hide things, he would have brought along all of the toys. It wasn’t fair that they were bringing almost everything that Austin owned and almost nothing of the baby’s except his clothes and food. A kid needed toys to be happy.
Mars crawled off the edge of the booth and Austin caught him by a foot. It was amazing that anyone survived babyhood. Returning him to the carrier, they got on their way. This road was a tourist kingdom, winding around to reveal more and more shops of knick-knacks and paintings. The clothing store had been looted, and the only bicycle remaining at the bicycle shop was the one painted on the sign. A picture on the wall showed what the shop used to look like, hundreds of bicycles lined up in neat rows along the floor.
They passed the park where Zaley had gone every few days to get their bags of food. Tall grass had grown up around a sign advertising a farmers’ market on Sundays. There were tire tracks on the grass where the relief trucks had gone to park. The place needed to be mowed, and to have all the trash picked up. The cans had been overturned, the wind sending their contents everywhere. A tiny brown dog was picking through a can. The salty air was joined by the stench of pee. Austin looked at the top of the baby’s head suspiciously, thinking it was someone else’s turn to change him, but the smell was coming from the park.
Five people were walking down the road in the other direction, traveling in the lanes since there weren’t any moving cars. No, six people. One of the women was holding a young child. Austin fought to keep his hand away from his neck. The cosmetics covered the stamp and he had to trust that. He put his arms around the baby instead.
Zaley called out a hello to one of the women as their groups passed. Her eyes held no fear, only vague annoyance. The woman cried, “Happy Fourth!”
Happy Fourth? As Zaley returned the wish, the answer came to him. It was the Fourth of July. There weren’t going to be any firework displays, barbecues, or pool parties this year. There wasn’t a country left to have those things.
When the group had gone around a turn in the road, Austin whispered, “Are we okay?”
“We’re okay,” Zaley said confidently. “That was a total idiot from the relief line. I could tell her that you all have Sombra C and she’d just say the clouds are pretty today.”
The Fourth of July. When Mars was four or five, Austin would take him to the fireworks stand and buy sparklers. He had loved those when he was little, his uncles buying him a box and Mamma shouting Austin, you’re going to burn off your fingers and Jesus won’t give you any more. Austin wasn’t sure how they were going to work out the baby’s religion. It would be a baffling mix of Christian-pagan-atheism.
The road they were on was leading them right to the freeway, which they would cross to travel on a trail. First they’d have to go around Marin City. Better maps would be nice, but they had several showing trails going northward, and the cities to avoid along the way. The trails were wobbly, not straight. Austin had spent a lot of time staring at the space around Petaluma, trying to decipher psychically where Arquin was hiding.
The repetitive dream pushed up in his mind, soldiers in dog tags and underwear, and he glared at the back of Micah’s blue-and-brown head. The blue was fading. While waiting for everyone this morning, he’d stolen the toy and paged through the undies catalogue one last time. Guys might not be so keen on a dude with a baby, whatever Micah said. Austin was a package deal now.
The freeway appeared in the distance as they passed the remnants of a library. A fire had taken it down. A couple of fried shelving units stood in the gutted building. Black chunks of books sat on them. That wasn’t going to be a place where they could get their hands on more maps.
“I wish we could take a car,” Austin said. They had a car seat, after all. Micah was carrying it. It wasn’t safe to travel in a vehicle, but to sit in a car and have it sweep away the miles for him was a luxury. There could be fewer braces in the way with the reduction in traffic. No one drove anywhere except the relief truck.
Cars were parked along the curbs and in tiny parking lots. Most of them had their gas flaps wide open. Other cars had been made into homes, tarps erected around them and feet hanging out of windows. It was smart to move out of Sausalito on a relief truck day. Everyone had a meal. They weren’t looking at Austin’s backpack with hungry eyes.
At the on-ramp, he said goodbye to the city. It hadn’t been all that bad, living here, and it was a big improvement on San Francisco. This had been a nice city once. One day it could be nice again.
The lanes on both sides of the freeway were empty of traffic. Two cars had been in an accident and never gotte
n towed away, one sporting a crumpled accordion of a hood and the second flipped upside down. The gas flap was open even on the upside down car. Not a single moving vehicle was anywhere. Nor was there a brace, or any people around at all. Mist rolled down the hills. It looked like something ghostly from a Halloween cartoon.
“Do you want me to adjust the straps of the carrier?” Micah asked. Austin looked down in surprise. He had just been hugging the baby for good luck since those other people had passed, not supporting Mars’ weight.
They ran across the lanes and climbed down on the other side. Dirty water sat in a small reservoir. Skirting it, they backtracked south to get to the trail. Beyond the reservoir was a huge strip mall and parking lot without a single car in it. Just empty lines with no purpose. Some of the buildings had been looted so long ago that there were unbroken cobwebs in the shattered windows. Micah’s gun came up. “Ferals in the stores,” she whispered.
Corbin took up his bow and Zaley got out her gun. Mars whimpered, deciding at a bad time to have a fuss. Austin could tell his sounds apart, and this one meant overdue for naptime. Turning him around in the carrier, Austin almost sang a lullaby in reflex. That wasn’t a good idea if there were ferals lurking in those dark stores, and then he spied a shape in one. Definitely time to go.
They walked quickly, only slowing down when they made the road past the last building. The stoplights were dead and no one was around, so they walked across to the homes on the other side. Austin sang very quietly and stroked the baby’s hair.
The Zombies: Volumes One to Six Box Set Page 136