by Kody Boye
“Jamie wanted me to check on you. Can I come in?”
Erik pulled the door open all the way and started back for the bed. Dakota took the action as a welcoming one and stepped into the room. “I brought you a snack,” he said, setting the bowl on the end table. “And some pills.”
“Already took some,” Erik grumbled.
“Did you drink any water?”
“No.”
“Have you eaten anything?”
“Not really.”
“That’s probably why you’re sick,” Dakota sighed, pulling the sheet up over Erik’s waist. He grabbed the bowl and held it before the man. “Eat something.”
“I don’t want to.”
“It’s food. I got for you.”
“I’m not hungry, Dakota. My head’s ready to explode and I feel like I’m gonna throw up.”
“You’re probably dehydrated,” Dakota sighed, substituting the bowl of pretzels in his hand for the bottle of water. “At least take a drink. A little water’s not going to hurt you.”
“Can you just leave me alone, please?”
“Drink the water.”
“Whatever,” Erik growled, snatching the bottle away. “I’ll drink the fuckin’ water. Now will you please leave me alone?”
Dakota took a few steps back, taking extra care to make sure that Erik would drink the water. “If you need something, just call.”
“Whatever,” Erik grumbled.
When Dakota closed the door, he thought he caught the older man mumbling something under his breath before he left.
“How’s Erik?” Ian asked.
“Cranky as hell,” Dakota said, shutting the front door behind him.
“Nothing new I guess.”
“That’s not really funny,” Steve said, chuckling as Ian slugged his shoulder. “He was the same way coming here.”
“Cranky as hell,” Ian said, “couldn’t say something without him biting your head off.”
“He’s just sick,” Dakota said. “He can’t help it.”
“I know,” Steve said. “The least he could do is try to be a little more pleasant.”
When Jamie came up and offered him a look, Dakota simply shrugged. Jamie chuckled in response. “I guess you know what’s going on then,” Dakota said.
“He’s been my best friend for years. I know how stubborn he is.”
“He wouldn’t even take a drink of water until I practically forced him to.”
“That’s Erik for you. He’ll do whatever he wants if he isn’t going to get in trouble for it.”
“But he’s sick.”
“It doesn’t help that he’s a nurse. Or was, I should say. He went through enough training for it.”
“Doesn’t really matter,” Dakota said, looking back at the house. “Someone should probably go in and check on him later though. I don’t think it’s the best idea if I do it.”
“You don’t think his headaches will get any worse,” Ian began, “do you?”
“I don’t know.” Jamie ran a hand over his forehead, looked between the three men before him, then turned his eyes back at the house, toward the furthest window on the left. “I’ve never had a migraine. All I know is what Erik’s told me, but from what he’s said, they usually don’t last more than a day or so. I’m guessing this is just from stress.”
“What could he be stressing out about?” Steve frowned. “We’re already here.”
“Erik’s got a lot of history you don’t know about, Steve. I just hope that backstory isn’t creeping up again.”
Two walls stood by the time night arrived.
Marked by the day’s progress, Jamie, Steve and Ian entered the house just as the last bits of light faded from the sky and collapsed on the couch, breathing heavily and stripping out of their clothes with the pained groans of men with stiff joints.
“God,” Jamie gasped, looking down at his hands. “Shit.”
“Fuckin’ hell,” Ian said. “You got concrete burns.”
“I thought I was wiping it off,” Jamie said, grimacing as he curled and uncurled his fingers. “Damn.”
“You ok?” Dakota asked.
“It hurts like a mother, but I’ll live.”
“What are we supposed to do for it?”
“Soak it in water, I guess.”
Dakota turned and started into the kitchen. While Jamie called out, saying not to waste the water on his hands, he crouched down, rummaged through the cupboards, then pulled out a few bottles of water and a small pot before considering the gas-powered stove before him. “Does the stove work?” he asked.
“It should,” Jamie said. “Dakota, don’t waste water on my hands.”
“Your hands are gonna fry if you don’t do something,” Ian said. “Using a little water isn’t going to hurt us any.”
“Right,” Dakota said, jumping as Ian stepped up beside him. “You scared me.”
Ian reached forward and opened a top cupboard. “You know where the vinegar is?”
“No.”
“It’s here somewhere,” Ian grunted. He balanced the weight on the tips of his toes and pushed a few boxes out of his way, then settled his weight back onto his feet when he found what he was looking for. “Pour some of this in here.”
“What does vinegar do?”
“Neutralize the chemical in the concrete.”
“Something tells me you’ve done this before,” Dakota said, upending the bottle and pouring the vinegar into the pot.
“I used to work construction before…well… I got more involved in other activities.”
“You don’t have to talk about it.”
“I mean, I’m cool with talking about it,” he said, pausing as Dakota started a burner, “but it’s not something I’m proud of.”
“We all have moments like that, Ian.” Dakota dipped a finger into the water, then a second when he couldn’t tell an initial difference. He waited a moment before dipping another in, dividing his attention between Ian and the timer above the stove. Once he deemed the water warm enough, he turned off the burner, removed it from the stove and dumped it into a separate bowl, complete with the extra vinegar. “Thanks for helping me with this, Ian.”
“Don’t mention it.”
“Now we just have to get someone to use it,” Dakota laughed, raising his voice so Jamie could hear him.
“I will,” Jamie chuckled, nodding as Dakota set the bowl before him. “I’m not going to waste water.”
“You better not.”
“Thanks, babe.” Jamie grimaced as he eased his hands into the water. “We’ll have to see if we can find some gloves in one of the other houses.”
“Did either of you get burns?” Dakota asked, turning his attention to Steve and Ian.
“Nope,” Steve said.
“I’m fine,” Ian said, raising his hands for emphasis. “We used brooms. Jamie got the brunt of it.”
“Which I still feel bad for,” Steve said, slapping an arm around Jamie’s shoulders.
“Don’t worry about it. It beats getting shot.”
“That it does.”
At that moment, Dakota couldn’t help but notice the scar on Steve’s arm.
It beats getting shot, he thought, but at least it’s a temporary pain.
Not sure what else to do, he seated himself beside Jamie and set a hand on his lower back.
His and Steve’s fingers touched.
“Did something happen down there?” Jamie asked, easing himself into bed.
“What do you mean?”
“With Steve. He got all quiet after I mentioned getting shot.”
“It’s…” Dakota sighed. “I guess you never talked to Steve about the Marines, have you?”
“No. He’s only ever mentioned getting discharged after being wounded in battle.”
“That scar on his arm? That’s the reason he was discharged. A bomb went off in front of him after he pushed another Marine away from it.”
“How’d he know it was there?”
; “Someone saw the trip device in the back of the car. It was a decoy. The guy Steve pulled away from the car had just started to pull the door open before it exploded.”
“How’d he live?”
“He’s supposed to be dead,” Dakota sighed. “Everyone who’s met him said it’s a miracle he survived. His arm was broken—it nearly had to be amputated—but his doctor was a miracle worker, I guess.”
“Sounds like it,” Jamie said. “I wouldn’t have said what I did if I’d known.”
“I know. It’s a touchy subject. Steve came back and couldn’t tell me what happened for a month. He’s still not over it.”
“Not something you get over easily. Did he ever go to therapy?”
“Therapy?”
“For PTSD.”
“I don’t think so.”
“I know it doesn’t get rid of it completely, but at least it would’ve helped.”
“Steve’s bullheaded. It’s not in his character to ask someone else for help. He’s the helper, not the victim.”
“Oh well,” Jamie said. “Not much I can do about it now. Guess I’ll just apologize in the morning. I don’t want bad blood between us.”
“There wouldn’t be bad blood.”
“I know, but still. If you fucked up and can fix it, there’s no point not to.”
Sliding into bed, Dakota pulled the covers up over his shoulders and settled down onto the pillow.
Before he closed his eyes, he looked out the window and smiled at the wall that greeted him.
For the first time since everything began, he could finally call someplace home.
Dakota woke the following morning to the sound of cries and yells. Panicked, he jumped out of bed and tore the window open, desperately clawing at the safety locks and scrambling to push the curtains aside. One of the panels fell, followed by another, then a third, all of which knocked him aside or tore scratches across his face. Just when he thought that he wouldn’t be able to get through, he pushed his upper body forward and out the window.
He expected to see carnage—blood, destruction, the remaining two walls in ruins and his friends strewn across the front lawn. What he found, however, was a celebration.
“We did it!” Jamie cried, waving up at the window.
“You did what?” Dakota called back.
“We nearly finished the walls! We—” Jamie stopped. “What the fuck happened to your face?”
“The curtain panels,” he said. “I thought something bad was happening.”
Jamie reached up to run a hand over his face, then looked back at Ian and Steve, whose smiles simply widened as their shoulders rose, then fell. “You’re ok though,” Jamie said, “right?”
“Just a few scratches, that’s all.”
“Come on down here. We need to rig up a gate, but that’s pretty much all we need to do.”
“Give me a few minutes to get dressed,” Dakota smiled. “Good job, guys.”
“Thanks!” Steve called up.
“We’ve been at it since before dawn!” Ian added.
They’re crazy, Dakota thought, drawing back into the bedroom. Fucking crazy.
After dressing and checking to make sure that his face hadn’t been too horribly cut, Dakota left the room, made his way down the stairs, then out through the front door. He took notice of the gap on the south wall almost immediately. “I thought you said you were finished?”
“We are,” Jamie said, setting a hand on Dakota’s shoulder before he could continue any further. “The only problem we have now is devising a way to rig a gate up.”
“Can’t you just use hinges?”
“In case you haven’t noticed, there’s not many hinges that can hold a gate this big.”
“We were thinking about taking the hinges off the storage shed up the road,” Steve said, stepping forward to stand beside Jamie. “This way, we don’t have to risk going back into town yet.”
“We’ll have to go back into town anyway, Steve. We need supplies.”
“But we want to do it when we’re better coordinated, not when we’re dead-tired from working on our defenses.”
“If we can get the hinges off a shed, I don’t see why not,” Dakota said. He turned his eyes toward Jamie a moment later. “I thought you had this all planned out?”
“I did.”
“Then why do we need hinges?”
“I grabbed the wrong size.”
“What?”
“He grabbed the wrong hinges,” Steve chuckled. “It was an easy mistake.”
Jamie sighed. “Sometimes shit like this happens.”
“We can’t do much about it,” Dakota said.
“Other than get the hinges, no.”
Steve stared intently at a spot in the distance. He raised his hand to his eyes for a moment, shading the sun, then pointed. “Hey, someone’s coming.”
Dakota looked. Jamie’s fingers tightened around his shoulder as the vehicle came into view.
“It’s Kevin,” Jamie said.
“Who?” Steve asked.
Dakota’s heart sank as the vehicle crested the first turn at the tip of the road and continued forward.
“So,” Dakota mumbled. “They decided to come after all.”
“Eagle’s dead,” Kevin informed them. “And so is my Jessiah.”
They were in the living room, sharing a snack of soda and biscuits. The boys and Kevin were on one couch, Ian, Desmond and Steve on another. Dakota and Jamie remained standing with their hands in their pockets or at their sides, watching the man and his remaining two sons with eyes wary, yet concerned. It seemed unlikely that a father who’d once been so determined to remain at home with his children would travel hundreds of miles through zombie-infested territory to meet up with them, but if what he said was true, they’d suffered a terrible tragedy, one that had almost completely stripped away the former self of the man Dakota, Jamie and Desmond had met little more than a week before.
He’s so thin, Dakota thought, and his kids…they’re…
Sad? Angry? Dead? What word did you use to describe the sight of children so pale and white that they appeared nothing more than corpses freshly-pulled from the ground? With their raccoon eyes and their fleshy-pink lips, they appeared to be nothing more than animals, creatures taken from another world to show the current one how sad things could really be.
“What happened?” Jamie finally asked, as though unable to bear the silence any longer.
“Jessiah died in his sleep four-and-a-half days ago,” Kevin said, turning his head up to look directly at Jamie. “As for Eagle, we’d just left Minnesota and were staying in a World War Two memorabilia barn when we got jumped. One of them grabbed Arnold. Eagle pulled it off of him so he could get in the truck when he…” Kevin bowed his head, “when he got bit.”
“There’s nothing you could’ve done,” Jamie said, reaching forward to set a hand on the man’s shoulder. “He died protecting your son.”
“He didn’t deserve it,” Arnold mumbled.
“No one deserves to die, Arnold. No one.”
Jamie stepped back. He cast a glance back at Steve, Ian and Desmond, but didn’t say anything to them. Instead, he gestured Kevin and his boys to stand before leading them to the door. “It’s not much,” he said, “but you can have the house on the far end.”
“What?” Kevin asked.
“The third house, the one with the coral roof. It’s yours.”
“I can’t accept that.”
“You opened your home to us.We’re offering the same. I’m not turning you away, especially not with your children. There isn’t enough room here and the second house doesn’t belong to me, it belongs to Erik.”
“Where is he?”
“Lying down. He’s been sick for the past week. Migraine headaches.”
“I’m sorry to hear that. Give him my best.”
“I will.” Jamie smiled. “The key’s under the rock by the door. And we’ve already searched it. It’s safe.”
“Thank you, Jamie. Such kindness means a lot to me.”
Jamie reached forward, took the man’s hand in his, then brought him forward into a brief embrace. Kevin gave one final nod before exiting out the door with his sons.
“That’s the guy you stayed with while you were in Minnesota?” Ian asked.
“Yeah,” Desmond said. “His oldest son was my age.”
“He got bit by his horse,” Dakota sighed.
“His horse?” Steve frowned.
“Horses don’t carry it,” Ian added.
“They don’t carry it,” Dakota said. “They carry something.”
“What are you talkin’ about, kid?”
“The way he explained it to me was that his horse had been acting strange. They’d been away from the cabin for a while, so he was worried that the neighbor who came to check on his horse wouldn’t be around. When they got there, the horse was swaying and acting…well, sick. When he tried to put her in the barn, she bit him. He didn’t think it was anything serious until the skin started to turn black.”
“He never told his dad?”
“No. He wasn’t bit by a zombie, so he didn’t think it was that serious. For all he knew, it could’ve been bruising.”
“Still not the best way to go about it,” Steve pointed out, kicking his foot up on the coffee table.
“No,” Dakota sighed, “it wasn’t. Jessiah got really sick near the end. I asked Jamie if we could leave because I wasn’t comfortable being around someone so ill.”
“Which isn’t your fault,” Jamie said, closing the front door. “When you told me about it, I didn’t feel comfortable being there either.”
“So we can trust them?” a voice from the hall asked. Dakota found Erik standing in the threshold, jeans hanging from his skinny waist and a cigarette from his lips. “Can I smoke in here, Jamie?”
“I don’t care,” Jamie said, “but to answer your question, yes, we can trust him.”
“Jessiah said he killed a man and his girlfriend who tried to steal food from them,” Dakota said, “but that was because the guy drew a knife on one of his sons.”
“Which is completely understandable given the circumstance. I know I’d shoot someone if they pulled a knife on my kid.”
“I only heard a little of it,” Erik said, “but he seems…disoriented.”