by Bible, Jake
“How do you know I’m going south?” Elsbeth asks, her head tilting to the side. You know, like a curious lioness just before she pounces on some poor, wounded animal.
“Um, well… I guessed?”
“You’re a bad liar, Long Pork.”
“So are you.”
Ooooh, she doesn’t like that.
“Who says I’m lying? I’m looking for cannies. That’s what I said. It’s true.”
It’s my turn to give her a “look.” It isn’t anywhere close to as effective as her look.
“Where are you really going, El?” I ask bluntly. No time for the Jace and Elsbeth dance. I’m tired.
Her face scrunches up and I tense my entire body, not sure where she’s going to hit me. Then she relaxes and sits down on the stack of fence boards. They shift and slide out from under her and she falls on her ass. Before I can even think to laugh at the slapstick, she shoots me a death glare that takes about eight years off my life expectancy.
I do not laugh. No laughing.
Once she has her embarrass rage under control, she shakes her head and sighs.
“I’m following the girls,” she says.
I have a feeling she expects me to know what this means.
“Not following you,” I say.
“Yes, they are,” she replies.
Shit. Now I’m really lost. I grab a seat next to her.
“Start over,” I say. “What the fuck is going on?”
“The girls that have been following me and watching us,” Elsbeth says, her voice intoning that I’m a complete moron. “I follow them. They don’t know.”
Too many questions go through my head.
“Okay, we’ll get to the ‘watching us’ part later,” I say. “Where do you follow them to?”
“That big house,” she says, “with all the fields and woods around it.”
“Going to have to narrow it down for me,” I say. “That describes a shit ton of houses around Asheville. Every douchebag that had Biltmore envy built one of those.”
“Yes, that place,” she smiles. “You’re smart, Long Pork.” She punches me on the shoulder. My confusion is what distracts me from the pain.
“El, I love you like family...”
“Because I am family,” she says, looking at me out of the corner of her eye. She has trust issues.
“Yes, exactly, you know that,” I say. “Stella and me and the kids, we all think of you as one of us. Hence the ‘love you like family’ words that came out of my mouth. Can I finish?”
“I don’t think so,” Elsbeth says. “You’re always talking, talking, talking. It’s what everyone says.”
This is not going well.
“Right. I get that,” I sigh. “But what areyou talking about? What big house?”
Her brow furrows and she puts a hand to my forehead. “Heat must be stroking your brain, Long Pork. Because you already guessed which house.”
“Nope, no heat stroking going on,” I smile. “Wait…the Biltmore? Is that the house?”
“Yeah, stupid. You said that. You sure you aren’t stroking heat?”
“I’m sure,” I say.
“Stuart knows that,” Elsbeth says. “Why didn’t you ask him?”
James “Don’t Call me Jimmy” Stuart is Whispering Pines’ Head of Defensive Ass Kicking. I gave him that name. It fits. Fifty-something, ex-Marine gunnery sergeant, he has a team of ass kickers that keep Whispering Pines safe from the crazies out there in the post Z-Day world. Not that there are a ton left. We’ve either cleared them out or they’ve come and joined us here or at the Grove Park Inn.
Or Reynolds Mountain. Fucking Reynolds Mountain…
“Stuart knew where you were going?” I ask.
“Yeah, of course,” Elsbeth says. “I thought you sent him after me. He’s been following me for a week. He’s good, but not that good.” She leans in close, looks around to make sure we aren’t being listened to, which we aren’t since everyone else is busy working and putting the finishing touches on the dozens of houses we’ve spent months rebuilding. “Sometimes,” she giggles. Actuallygiggles. It’s a little creepy. “Sometimes, I go in crazy directions just to make him hike everywhere. He’s old, he gets tired, it’s funny.”
“Sounds hilarious.”
“It is!” she guffaws and slaps me on the shoulder. Ow.
“Okay, we have established location. Now how about the why?”
“Why what?”
“Why are you following the girls?”
“Because they are watching us, stupid,” Elsbeth says and stands up. “I’m getting Stella. There’s something wrong with you. You’re supposed to be the smart guy and you’re not being smart. I’m worried.”
I get up quickly. “No, I’m fine. Seriously. It’s just we’re talking in circles. It’s making me dizzy.” I hold up my hands before she can respond. “Not physically dizzy, just mentally dizzy. I’m not actually dizzy, okay?”
“Okay,” she says, “I get that. I’m not stupid.”
“No, no you are not,” I say. “The girls…who are they?”
Elsbeth’s face goes dark. She twists her lips about. “I don’t know. But I do. But I don’t. I see them in my dreams.”
In her dreams. Shit.
“Like Ms. Foster? Like how you see her in your dreams sometimes? Singing?” I ask.
“Yeah, like that,” Elsbeth nods. “So I follow them when they are done watching and they go home.”
“You think the Biltmore is their home?”
“Yeah,” she nods, “I’ve watched them go in there.”
“Whoa, hold the fuck on…you go onto the estate?” I ask. “How? The place is covered in like a thousand Zs.”
She shrugs. “Yeah. Not that hard.”
She’s holding something back. There is key information just waiting to be told. I hate it when someone keeps shit from me. Drives me nuts.
“Listen, El, if you know...”
Our phones chime. Incoming texts.
Landon Chase is Head of IT and he made sure our Wi-Fi network was one of the first things reestablished in Whispering Pines. It’s made the rebuild way easier.
“Need you, please. Can’t make Counsel meeting. I have the shits.”
Stella. My wife. Board Chairperson for the Whispering Pines Homeowners’ association. As leader of the HOA she is supposed to go to the Grove Park and meet with Lourdes Torres (commander of the private military contractors), Ed Lassiter (leader of the Labor Force), Big Daddy Fitzpatrick (head of the Farm), and Critter (Big Daddy’s brother and leader of whatever the fuck he’s leader of). It’s the monthly Survivor Counsel meeting.
“Why does she need me?” Elsbeth asks.
We find out quickly as we walk into my house, one of the very first that was rebuilt from the many scraps and components of the abandoned neighborhoods around us.
“Hey, baby,” Stella says from the couch, “I’m sick. It was the apples.”
“I told you they were too green,” I say.
“But they tasted so good,” she sighs. “Can you go in my place today?”
“Sure,” I say, “I’ll get cleaned up. What’d you need Elsbeth for?”
“She’s going with you,” Stella says.
“I can take care of myself,” I snap.
“Yes, yes you can,” Stella sighs, “but I’d feel better if she was with you. Okay?”
“Oooh,” Elsbeth smiles. “I can go swimming!” She claps her hands and does a little dance.
“Can I go?” Greta, our fourteen year old daughter asks from the walkway above. “I want to go swimming. And Tansy and Becka will be there.”
“Not today, sweetie,” Stella says. “You and your brother have chores. The house needs to be cleaned.”
“Seriously? That’s bullshit,” Greta snaps. “We’re always cleaning the house! What do you do? Just sit on the couch and...”
“I’d stop there,” I say, seeing the look on my wife’s face. “Greta? Go get your brother and
start cleaning.”
“It’s like ninety degrees in here!” she shouts. “I’ll die!”
“Then you’ll come back as a Z and I’ll kill you,” Elsbeth says.
Silence.
“I’ll get Charlie,” Greta says and tucks away quickly.
“Thanks, El,” Stella says, “she needed a swift kick like that.”
“What?” Elsbeth asks. “I didn’t say I’d kick her, I said I’d kill her.”
“Right,” Stella smiles, “whatever, it worked. Jace?”
“Getting clean then we are out of here,” I say, leaning over the couch and kissing her. “Love you.”
“Love you too.”
***
Melissa Billings, our head of the scavenging crew, drives the four door pickup truck as we wind up Elk Mountain Road on our way to the Grove Park. I sit up front with her while Elsbeth sits in the back seat and her eyes watching the empty houses zip by. The truck bed is filled with heavily armed men and women, part of Lourdes’s crew. They accompany everyone everywhere. It’s greatly reduced the casualty rate that can get kinda high in the zombie apocalypse.
Melissa keeps glancing at me out of the corner of her eye and it’s really bugging the shit out of me.
“What?” I ask. “Out with it.”
“We have to make a detour,” she says. “Need to pick someone up.”
“Pick someone up? Who? There’s nothing between here and the Grove Park except… No. No fucking way.” I shake my head like a three year old having a tantrum. “No, no, no. I’ll kill the bitch.”
After my shower, I switched up my prosthetic and put on my “in the field” arm. It’s a long spike, deadly sharp at the end. Mr. Spikey. If we get in the shit then I’m ready to brain some Zs. It’s not an easy thing to do, but I’ve gotten pretty good with it. I hold up Mr. Spikey and wave it by Melissa’s face.
“I. Will. Stab. Her,” I say.
Elsbeth snickers from the back seat. I turn on her, pissed. She glares. I turn back, not quite as pissed.
“They are putting the last touches on their fortifications,” Melissa says, ignoring my hissy fit. “She can get away for the meeting, but can’t spare any of her people.”
“Her people?” I snort. “Fucking dipshits.”
Brenda Kelly, the former Chairperson of the Whispering Pines HOA. Stella took her job. It was a bloodless coup, done all democratic like and all.
But that woman…
She’s a squat, ugly, goblin-beast of a bitch. The woman is pure evil, in my honest opinion. She colluded with Vance, but still got reelected because of fear and stupidity. It wasn’t until Stella stepped up and took over that she lost her power base. But, being an evil twat, she quickly found a new power base.
The laborers. The slaves that were brought to Asheville by Anthony Mondello (I refuse to call him the POTUS) and Ms. Foster (Lourdes’s former boss) to rebuild and secure the Blue Ridge Parkway.
Most of the laborers decided to stick around and stay at the Grove Park Inn. The problem is that so did the private military contractors, or PCs that had been their guards and captors. Tension is an understatement. And Brenda Kelly (did I mention the evil twat part?) grabbed onto that tension and pulled hard.
She quickly got a faction of laborers to back her and make a move to take over Reynolds Mountain. Years before Z-day, Reynolds Mountain was a planned development in Woodfin/North Asheville. A mix of “upscale” shops and cafes at the base with a luxury, private neighborhood overlooking it from the mountain above. They have spent the past few months fortifying the development, keeping the Zs at bay. It’s like a version of Whispering Pines, but with marble countertops and bidets.
“You’re just pissed because you didn’t think of it,” Melissa says, echoing my thoughts perfectly.
She’s right. I am pissed. I want marble countertops. I could do without the bidets. Never could figure that shit out. I mean, what do you do afterwards? Drip dry? It’s all so confusing!
“Am not,” I lie.
“Get over it, Jace,” Melissa says. “Is she an evil twat? Yes.” Ha! Told ya! “But she has a right to be a part of Asheville, just like all of us. As long as she doesn’t try anything.”
“And that’s the real problem,” I snap. “Eventually she will try something. That’s what evil twats do!”
“They also stink,” Elsbeth says.
“What?” I ask.
She waves her hand in front of her nose. “Evil twats stink. Smelly pussy.”
Melissa tries to keep it under control, but she bursts out laughing. I shake my head and smile then start laughing too.
“What?” Elsbeth frowns. “Don’t laugh at me? You laugh at me too much.”
“No, no, darling,” Melissa says, “I’m not laughing at you. You just crack me up sometimes, okay? That’s a good thing.”
Elsbeth smiles. “Okay. Good.”
Mood swings don’t even begin to describe the woman sitting behind me…
We cross over I-26 and I look down at the interstate below. The Zs are back. For a while, they had been cleared out by Vance, corralled into a massive pen he made out of draining Beaver Lake. We killed those after I took Vance down. But, Zs have some semblance of the habits of their old lives and always congregate in places they may have frequented when alive. It didn’t take long before other Zs made their way to their asphalt altar. Says a lot about our former commuter society, doesn’t it?
Instead of going straight onto Lakeshore Drive, Melissa turns left onto Woodfin Ave, heading to Reynolds Mountain. My gut clenches, as do my fists, but I keep it under control. Kinda have to with the gut clench or I’ll shit myself. That’s never fun. Trust me.
We have to cross Merrimon Ave and then drive through the old Reynolds Village. I used to go to the YMCA there. What? I went there. Twice. Shut up.
The road twists through a thick woods of pine before we come to a massive set of wooden gates. Huh, wonder where she got that design from? Gate design stealing twat.
Up, up, up we go. Some residents wave at us, recognizing Melissa’s truck. Some just stare, not trusting anyone that isn’t a direct neighbor. More than a few flip us off. Okay, they flip me off. I’m not exactly a favorite in these here parts.
I don’t even acknowledge the woman when we pull up to the fucking mansion she’s taken as her home. I guess she does share it with her right hand, Mindy Sterling, who used to be the Head of Security for Whispering Pines. Elsbeth’s manfriend, Julio, has taken that duty since Mindy decided to keep her nose wedged up her boss’s ass.
“Hey, Jace,” Mindy says to me then shuts up as she gets a death glare from Brenda.
The two women pull their collective bulks into the back with Elsbeth. Melissa just nods at them then pulls away.
“What do you think of our fortifications, Mr. Stanford?” Brenda asks as the massive gate closes behind us, shutting the development off from the rest of the Z infested world. “I’m sure it’s not up to your brilliant standards, but we haven’t had a breach yet.”
I grunt.
“I’ll take that as a compliment,” Brenda sneers. Not that I see the sneer since I’m focusing on the road in front of us and refuse to turn and look at her. But I hear that sneer. That snippy, smarmy sneer…
We pull out onto Merrimon Ave and drive south towards the Grove Park. Everyone sits in silence. Mindy tries to make conversation, but every time she opens her mouth, Elsbeth turns to her and frowns. She shuts up.
Our phones chime. All of our phones. Landon has been busy making sure the Wi-Fi is city wide. Solar batteries and routers everywhere.
“LAKE JULIAN UNDER SIEGE! ALL HANDS NOW!”
“Fuck,” I say. The power plant.
Albert Shumway, a muscled fireplug that works under Lourdes’s supervision has spent months retrofitting the Lake Julian power plant from coal into natural gas, which luckily we are flush with in Asheville. He’s an ornery asshole and we haven’t gotten along well, but he does know his power plants. He’s made a lot of
progress with getting us closer to city wide power.
If the Zs would leave the plant the fuck alone.
For some reason, and none of us can figure out what it is, the Zs like the power plant. They migrate there in hordes. Thirty, forty, fifty at a time they show up. Half the week is spent killing Zs and not working on the plant.
It sounds like there’s more of a herd this time than a horde.
“Status?” I text back.
“FUCK YOUR STATUS, STANFORD! I NEED EVERYONE HERE NOW! FUCKING HERD!”
I was right. Not that I want to be right about this. I like being right in Trivial Pursuit, not about civilization-crushing Z herds.
“Looks like the meeting is postponed,” Melissa says as she floors it.
“What?” Brenda screeches (it’s her default tone). “You aren’t dropping us at the Grove Park?”
Melissa hooks a thumb at the men and women in the bed of the truck. “Everyone means everyone, Brenda. It doesn’t mean make a pit stop to let you out so you can lounge by the pool.”
“Oh,” Mindy says. I guess she had planned on lounging by the pool.
“Well, don’t expect me to fight,” Brenda says. “I’m a leader, not a fighter.”
“You’re a slug,” Elsbeth says.
Brenda starts to reply then realizes who she is replying to and shuts the fuck up right quick.
“You know where Stuart is?” Melissa asks.
“Nope,” I say. “I’ll try to find out. We’ll need him.”
“He’s with Julio,” Elsbeth says.
“He is?” I ask. “How do you know?”
I look over my shoulder and she just stares at me.
***
When Z-Day hit it was a Sunday.
The day is only significant because on the Biltmore Estate, that’s a busy day. Thousands of tourists crowded the sprawling house, and surrounding grounds of one of America’s former families of robber baron royalty. The Vanderbilts.
For some inexplicable reason, the management of the estate decided to lock down everything when the dead began to rise. They closed and barred the gates, barricaded access roads, fenced off bridges. There was no way in or out.
Did they get a heads up? Did someone say, “Hey, zombie apocalypse! Everyone’s sleeping here tonight!”