by JE Gurley
To Mace’s delight, they found a cache of rich topsoil that the groundskeepers had used for the outside plant beds in a large mound behind one of the outlying buildings. Several quick trips to a local nursery in the Explorer produced enough wooden timbers to create several planting beds. After many days of backbreaking labor and numerous wheelbarrow loads of dirt, the main dome became a garden. Renda took it upon herself to do the planting, often returning to the residential area covered head to foot in dirt. She delighted in describing her work.
“The tomatoes have grown almost a foot,” she said one evening as they dined on baked chicken and mashed potatoes, “and the cucumbers and lettuce are sprouting. Before too long, we can have fresh salads with our meals.” She smiled as she spoke, attacking her plate of food with the same enthusiasm with which she approached her garden. “I was thinking, if we can find some fish at some fish hatchery or something, we can put them in the aquarium and have fresh fish.”
“We would have to be careful not to upset the ecology of the . . .” Mace’s voice trailed off as he noticed Jeb’s blank stare. Jeb idly stirred his mashed potatoes with his fork, not eating or paying attention to the conversation. “What’s wrong?”
Realizing Mace was addressing him, Jeb blinked several times and forced a smile to his lips and replied, “Oh, nothing. Just thinking.”
“You look worried. Is your side hurting again?”
Early on, occasional bouts of pain had sidelined Jeb from working in the garden for days, but his wound had eventually healed nicely.
“No, I feel fine. It’s just . . .” He laid his fork beside his plate and hid his nervous hands in his lap beneath the table. “It’s almost two months that we’ve been here. I’m restless, eager to continue my search for Karen.”
Mace sighed. “I suspected as much. You’re right, of course. I promised you I would help and I will. We can leave in a few days. I spotted some bicycles on our last trip to the nursery. I think that would be the best way.”
“What about the garden?” Renda protested.
Mace placed his hand on top of hers. “It will have to take care of itself for a while. We can’t let Jeb go off alone and I’m sure you don’t want to stay here by yourself.”
“You’ve got that right,” she growled. She looked at Jeb. “We’ll go with you.” She got up from the table, taking her plate with her, and set it on the counter. “Just leave your dishes on the counter. I’ll take care of them later.”
As Renda climbed the spiraled staircase to her and Mace’s shared room, her footsteps were heavy and she leaned heavily on the railing for support. His guilt at destroying her world spoiled Jeb’s appetite, so he roughly shoved his plate aside.
“I screwed that up pretty well, didn’t I?” he said to Mace who was watching Renda’s climb with a frown on his face.
“She’s been moody lately,” he answered. His eyes followed Renda until she disappeared from sight. Then he turned to Jeb. “It’s not your fault. I think she’s been putting her frustrations into the garden. It’s a symbol to her. She’ll come round. Besides, she’s . . .” he stopped midsentence.
Jeb remembered the CVS Pharmacy bag Mace had brought her. “She’s sick isn’t she?”
Mace nodded. “She has breast cancer. It’s in remission now. She’s taking Paclitaxel, but it makes her sick sometimes and she has mood swings. She’ll pull through.”
Jeb hoped Mace was right. His search for Karen had become the vessel into which he could dump his frustration, as the garden had for her. He could carry his with him, but not her. It was fixed permanently to Biosphere2 and his suggestion was to rip her from it.
“What about you?” he asked Mace.
Mace forked a piece of baked chicken to his mouth, chewed it a couple of times and swallowed. “Oh, I guess I’m as restless as you are. That’s why I enjoyed being a hunting guide so much. It kept me out of the house.” He took a sip of beer, they had picked up from a ransacked quick stop mart. A few cases had been stacked in a corner of the stockroom underneath a tarp. “Renda’s different. She wants a future like the one she always dreamed of – a husband, kids, a house – that kind of thing. That’s not going to happen now, and she’s having a hard time accepting it. We sort of fell in together. Maybe I love her; I don’t know. She makes me feel good. I don’t want to leave her, but the three of us have bonded, like a team. You don’t leave a winning team.” He took another sip of beer. “Or let your teammates down.”
“Maybe you had better go to her,” Jeb said. “I think I’ll go outside for a walk after I finish my coffee.”
As he rose from the table to join Renda, Mace said, “I’ll be out later to cut down that steel railing, so we can reroute it. Be careful.”
Jeb raised his coffee cup in mock salute. After Mace climbed the stairs, he took a few sips from his coffee and nibbled on a cracker. He missed fresh bread, but until they began to bake their own, crackers and frozen rolls would have to do. He drained the last sips from his cup and went outside. The evening was warm with a slight breeze from the south. His footsteps disturbed a flock of mourning doves. They fluttered to the branches of a tree and cooed their annoyance at him.
“Coo to you, too,” he told them.
If I were a real man, I would hop in the truck and head to California now, leave Mace and Renda behind to start a new life. He kicked a stone out of the path. But I’m not, he admitted. He knew he wasn’t equipped to do the job alone. He knew people, but he didn’t know how to live off the land or fend off zombie attacks. He didn’t know how to write off one in order to save another. Mace did. He didn’t want to become like Mace, but he needed him. The world was now a dark and terrible place, and monsters walked the land.
As Jeb walked along the gravel path, he paid scant attention to his surroundings, caught up in his musings. He walked to one end of the building and started back, but decided to stop, shut his eyes, and listen to the sounds of the evening. It was almost a fatal mistake. He turned at the scuffle of gravel behind him, expecting to see Mace coming. Instead, a snarling six-foot monster with blood-red eyes, sallow, corpse-like skin and a hunger for living flesh faced him. The creature wore a pair of filthy green, blood-smeared coveralls with the name Dub embroidered above the left breast pocket. With a sinking feeling, he realized that he had left his pistol inside. Jeb glanced at the nearest entrance, knowing that he would never reach it, unlock the door, and reach safety before the zombie caught him. He searched frantically for a weapon, any weapon with which he could stave off immediate death. His eyes fell upon a rake Renda had been using to rake the gravel walkway. Seizing it in both hands, Jeb shoved it towards the creature’s face.
“Get back!” he yelled uselessly.
The zombie, intent on its prey, ignored the threat and rushed at Jeb. Jeb swung the rake into the side of the zombie’s head as hard as he could with no effect. It kept coming. He maneuvered until he had placed a palo verde tree between himself and the creature. He reversed the rake, shoving the handle at the creature’s eyes. Although it felt little if any pain, the reflex to blink remained in the small functioning portion of its brain. It threw back its head and howled. The chilling sound raised the hairs on Jeb’s arm. Its foul breath smelled of rot and death. Cracks and lines covered its face and the creature’s lips had split so severely one corner was dangling loose. He wondered how such a creature, dead and slowly falling apart, could continue to survive.
The pair played Ring around the Rosy for several minutes, Jeb thrusting the rake at the zombie’s face hoping to blind it. When one thrust came too close, the creature grabbed the rake handle and yanked it from Jeb’s hands.
“Oh, crap,” he swore quietly. To the zombie, he said, “Can’t we work this out? I have a nice steak in the freezer. Wait here and I’ll get one for you.” He held out his hand, palm forward, in an insane attempt to placate the zombie. “Nice zombie.”
Running out of options, he raced for the nearby earthen berm, hoping the creature’s agility was less t
han his was. It was not. Halfway up the slope, Jeb fell and slid down slope. The zombie grabbed his leg and yanked him backwards. Jeb rolled over on his back and landed several vicious kicks in the creature’s face, but could not loosen the creature’s grip.
“Hey!”
Jeb looked toward the yell and saw Mace standing by the door with the Makita power cutter in his hands that he had intended to use to slice the steel pipes of the railing. The creature ignored his shouts, but turned its head, when Mace cranked the gas-powered cutter. Jeb seized upon the distraction to kick the zombie’s hand gripping his leg until it released him. He then rolled to one side and scuttled crab-like down the face of the berm. Mace ran at the creature with the cutter held high. He had removed the fourteen-inch blade’s guard earlier to extend the cutting depth to five inches for use as a weapon. At the time, Jeb had thought the idea foolish and somewhat dangerous. Now, he was glad Mace had ignored him. The zombie slid down the slope and landed beside Jeb, quickly rising to a stand. He stared into its dead red eyes, smelled the gagging, rotten-flesh stench of its breath and fought down the gorge rising in his throat.
“Out of the way!” Mace shouted.
Jeb scurried away as rapidly as he could while Mace held the creature’s attention. The zombie lunged at Mace’s legs. He kicked it in the head and danced back. As the creature rose to attack, he shoved the cutter straight into its face. Blood sprayed through the air, splattering both Jeb and Mace with thick foul blood. The creature fell. As it hit the ground, its head rolled away, stopping just inches from Jeb’s hand. His stomach revolted. He was still on his hands and knees retching, when Mace came up and kicked the head away. He helped Jeb to his feet.
“Good thing Renda had a headache,” he said.
“Yeah, thanks,” Jeb groaned.
Mace scowled and said with reproach, “Always carry your rifle.”
Jeb pushed himself to his feet, wiped his mouth on his sleeve and said, “I’ll remember that.”
Mace scanned the area with his eyes. “Is he the only one?”
Jeb nodded. “As far as I know.”
“What was he doing way out here?”
“He must be from the house we passed. It’s the only place nearby.”
Mace stared at the body. “Guess so. Go get the wheelbarrow and help me dump the body somewhere. I’ll have a look around, just in case.”
Jeb felt like a fool for forgetting his rifle and even more of a fool for even considering going off on his own. The incident just reinforced his vulnerability and his need for someone like Mace to teach him how to survive. Renda, with a worried expression on her face, met him at the door.
“What happened?”
He pushed by her without answering, feeling rebuked enough by Mace’s warning about carrying a weapon. He didn’t need her sympathy for being a fool, too. Later, he and Mace used the wheelbarrow to carry the body to the edge of the parking lot. Before they dumped it down the side of the canyon, Mace leaned in close to inspect the body.
“What are you doing, seeing if he has any spare change?”
Mace pulled open the zombie’s shirt. “Do you see anything strange about him?”
“Well, he’s a zombie. I’d call that strange.”
Mace glared at him and shook his head. “Look at his skin.”
“I can see well enough from here, thank you. He’s rotting.”
Mace yanked a strip if dead flesh, revealing darker flesh beneath. “No, he’s not rotting, He’s molting.” He pushed at it with his finger. “If I didn’t know better, I’d say his skin is at least twice as thick as it was and it feels as if his ribs are fusing together into some kind of bony plate, like internal armor.”
“That’s impossible.”
“And a zombie isn’t?” Mace shot at him.
Jeb shook his head, trying to sort out this new information that defied logic. “I . . . I don’t know. What does it mean?”
“You’re the doctor. You tell me.”
Jeb considered the facts for a moment. “They’re mutating into another species.”
Mace tilted the wheelbarrow. The body rolled twenty yards before coming to rest against a cholla cactus, its decapitated head traveled a little further.
“Why did you do that? We should have studied it.”
“I’ll find you more,” Mace said in reproach.
Realizing he was being ridiculous, Jeb shrugged. He remembered the coyote he had seen their first night and had heard yelping several times in the distance since, he said, “Earth to earth, ashes to ashes, and carnivore to carnivore.”
Mace gave him a strange look, but said nothing.
“You’re right.
“About what,” Mace asked, “the zombie?”
“No. I’m not ready to go to California yet. I would probably get you two killed and I can’t survive alone. That much is obvious even to me. We have to wait until you can show me the ropes for . . .” He waved his hands in the air, “this insanity.”
Mace nodded. “Better in warmer weather,” was all he said.
He started pushing the wheelbarrow toward their new garden. Dejected by his ineptness at survival, Jeb followed close behind trying to make some sense of their unsettling discovery.
20
Winter had turned into a damp early spring. The desert landscape outside Love’s Truck Stop in Gila bend, Arizona, so recently barren and seemingly lifeless, now bloomed with the bright yellows of whitethorn acacia and brittlebush, the dusky oranges of Mexican poppy, cholla cactus, the white and crimson of prairie clover, and Indian paintbrush. The air was still heavy with the humidity of the previous night’s rain. Several big rigs remained in the large asphalt parking lot and a handful of automobiles dotted the front lot, but the building was dark and empty. Shards of glass from the broken plate glass windows and doors littered the sidewalk. A murder of crows loudly disputing the ownership of tidbits of food boldly hopped in and out of the sagging, open doors. A few perched atop the decaying remains of human corpses. Once an oasis of activity in a sleepy little desert town, the truck stop now belonged to the desert scavengers. Even the desert was reclaiming what was once its territory. Small mounds of windblown sand pushed up against the walls and hid the edges of the parking lot from view.
Not all scavengers were animals. A five-ton army truck pulled up just outside the island of pumps, scattering the crows, but not frightening them into flight. They retreated from the truck and resumed their meals. Two men leaped from the canvas-covered rear of the truck and quickly set to work. They removed the cover from the underground diesel tank, plunged a rubber hose through the opening and began hand-pumping diesel into five-gallon fuel cans. The driver stepped a few yards away and lit a cigarette, while a fourth stood guard nearby with an army M4A1 carbine. They were not dressed as soldiers, nor did their manner or lack of discipline indicate they ever had been. Two wore jeans, sneakers and t-shirts. Another sported a bright Hawaiian shirt and red shorts. The guard wore tan slacks, a white Polo shirt and a gray fedora hat.
“Hurry with that fuel, you two,” he called out. “This place gives me the creeps.”
“You’re too jumpy, Dizzy,” one of the pumpers replied. “Go look for some cigarettes.”
“Screw that,” Dizzy replied. “That place has been tossed a dozen times. You won’t find shit in there.”
“Plenty of diesel.”
“The Major said there would be, didn’t he?”
“Talk about the creeps,” the driver said. “That army major’s got one too many loose screws, I think.”
A fifth man, tall and thin, wearing gray dungarees and a gray, long-sleeved shirt stepped down from the rear of the truck. His face would have frightened babies. An angry red welt ran diagonally across his face from just above his right eye to just below his right ear, pulling his mouth into a feral grin. “You’re not paid to think. You’re paid to drive.”
His voice was cold and humorless. The two pumpers pretended fascination with their task. The guard turned
his back and began walking toward the edge of the parking lot, as if to inspect a minivan crashed into an acacia tree. The driver dropped his cigarette and crushed it with his toe. “I didn’t mean anything by it. It’s just this munie business. What did he do with them?”
“What do you care? You’re paid in whisky, cigarettes and food and get a go with the pretty girls, right? That’s better than you did before.”
One of the pumpers chuckled. The Gray Man spun and glared until the man lowered his head and resumed his work.
“Get those cans in the truck and let’s get going,” he growled. “We’ve got four munies in the back and we need to meet the Major before sunset. Remember, he’s the man with the little blue vials. Any of you want to become a zom?” he paused a few seconds. “I didn’t think so.”
“All full here,” one man said, picking up two fuel cans. His partner carried the other two.
The driver crawled into the front seat of the truck. The two pumpers loaded their cans into the back and jumped in after them, followed by the guard. The Gray Man lingered a few minutes longer, staring into the desert before he grinned and joined his men.
After the men had left, Vince sat up in the rear seat of the minivan in which he had spent the night. He frowned as he stared at the truck as it disappeared down Pima Road into Gila Bend. The man in gray had smiled as if he had known Vince was hiding in the minivan. Vince had overheard the men’s conversation. He didn’t understand all the words, munie and little blue vials, but what little he did follow made his skin crawl. The men were bounty hunters working for the military, rounding up innocent civilians for pay, like cattle herders. His fingered the M16A2 in his lap. He knew now he should have shot them all and freed the prisoners, but it was too late. Besides, he didn’t know how many more men were inside the truck guarding the prisoners.