Mac nodded his head. “—Dan…well, he, uh,” Mac stumbled to find the right way to go about it. “Dan chose to depart from this world a little early, unable to handle the hardships this life has brought upon us all.”
Several of the people in the crowd signed the cross over themselves and muttered a small prayer for Dan’s soul while others looked at the ground, hiding their tears as they shook their heads. Gretchen couldn’t take her eyes away from the body. She was the only one. Most couldn’t bring themselves to look at it, even for a second. Christine noticed there were more people gathered around now than before.
Mac reached up with his free hand and wiped at his nose with a sharp sniff. Christine wasn’t sure if he merely had an itch or if he was starting to tear up as well. “Somehow the dead gathered in the barn and saw Dan’s body, uh, hanging there just out of reach and thought they’d have a go. Luckily, Christine here,” Mac gave her shoulder another squeeze, “was checking on the horses and saved the day. Zack was there too, a hero of the night no doubt. Without these two, we might be shy an animal or two or maybe all, so we should thank them for their service to the bunker and our survival.”
The speech started off rough, but by the end Mac had gathered his voice, warranting an uproar of raucous clapping. But it was silent. A few showed their appreciation with a slight tug of their lips up into a curt smile, others simply nodded solemnly once in Christine’s direction.
“We just happened to be there,” Christine said, her cheeks burning and her eyes unable to remain still on any single person’s face.
Her mind was still going a mile a minute. Did Dan hang himself because he hated this world and felt guilty over Anita still, or did he hang himself because he was already bitten and knew he was a dead man? How could he have turned if he wasn’t bitten? That had to be it. He held on so long after Anita was gone and seemed to be doing so much better. There was no way he would have waited that long if that was what caused him to take his life. And if that was it, he wouldn’t have changed. He would have died a peaceful death. When did one of those things bite him, though? Did he let it bite him on purpose, like I almost did when Liam turned?
Her breath caught in her chest. She’d almost forgotten about that moment. The moment when she had to make the choice to end her life and spend the afterlife as one of the undead with Liam eternally by her side, or to go on living without him and drive a knife through his skull to bring him relief from his retched new life. She hadn’t realized it through all the pain, but she was glad she chose to live. It was hard. It was lonely. It was painful and exhausting. But it was better than being one of those things.
“So, if he hung himself,” a middle-aged man spoke up, making his way forward to look Christine and Mac in the eyes. “how did he turn into one of them?”
Mac took a deep breath as he contemplated. He chewed his tongue and turned his eyes to the ground. “Well, Tom, we don’t really know.” Sure, he could have said Dan was bitten and they wouldn’t have known the difference. He could have made something up to give them an answer, but he didn’t. It was only the truth, plain and simple. They had no idea how he became one of them.
Christine finally stepped away from Mac and out from under his arm. He looked at her from the corner of his eye, but remained focused on the people in front of him as the questions were still firing off. She walked to where her sister stood next to Dan’s motionless body. They looked upon him together.
“I’m sorry, Gretch,” Christine offered.
Gretchen sighed and wiped the tears from her sopping cheeks. She opened her mouth to speak but all that escaped was a ragged breath. Her mouth closed again in silence.
Even looking on at a friend who was alive only moments ago, through the terrors witnessed, through the hordes of dead walking the earth, through losing loved ones and not-so loved ones, Christine still felt the deep-seeded bitterness in her heart for her sister leaving so long ago. Each time she felt that dark pang she chastised herself inwardly for being so petty and stupid. She needed to let it go and move on. They had bigger problems now. But the pain of her sister abandoning her still stung and she didn’t know how to make it stop, especially to be there for her in any way that mattered. She decided to just be there for her despite her hurt feelings.
Christine moved her hand ever so slightly, brushing her fingers against the back of Gretchen’s hand. Her sister startled at the unexpected touch. She looked down and then to Christine, the tears welling up in her eyes once more. They spilled over the brims and streamed down her face in rivers.
She wasn’t sure which one of them made the move, but the next moment their hands were intertwined together, squeezing so tightly they turned red.
“Thank you,” Gretchen whispered.
“For what?” Christine asked.
Her sister turned to her and smiled softly. “You’re here. That’s everything.”
XVIII
The next morning was a blur of mixed emotions from the group and from the people of the bunker. Gretchen was beside herself, staring off into nothingness one moment and breaking down into sobbing tears the next. Christine tried her best to comfort her, but nothing seemed to soothe the painful confusion over Dan’s death, and his second death.
Zack finally came out of the room he used to shut himself away in for the entire night. Sleep had eluded him as one thought bounced to another. He couldn’t help feeling responsible in some way for the poor kid doing what he did. He knew Dan carried a heavy weight over Anita’s death and Zack did nothing to help relieve it. If he hadn’t been so cold, so distant, always staring harshly at the kid or saying short, unkind words, if he hadn’t been so hard on him, maybe it would have given Dan the hope needed to keep going. Zack stretched his arms over his head and rose to his toes, feeling the pull in every muscle of his broad body. There was a small group already gathered in the communal area, talking in hushed voices. When they spotted Zack silence fell heavy.
Carolyn Bock sat on the couch with her face in her hands, not really crying but on the verge at any moment. Her head was spinning from the news. How could she have slept through something so huge? How could the sounds of a friend turning into a zombie and then dying not have shaken her to her very core and jerked her from her slumber? She wished she had been there, and at the same time she was glad she hadn’t been. When Gale turned it was almost too much for her to witness. It was no secret that she wasn’t built for this world. When it came to fighting off the dead she had minimal skills. It wasn’t that she didn’t want to learn, but she was slow to it. She had to work twice as hard as anyone else with target practice and she still wasn’t who anyone in the group would want defending their backside. Dan hadn’t been much help either, always lost and wallowing in his grief. Carolyn wondered how she hadn’t seen this coming, actually. The kid had given up long before last night.
Olivia Darling leaned her head against Lee Hickey’s chest as he wrapped a large arm around her shoulder. No tears fell from her eyes, but they dared not blink. Instead they stared ahead in deep thought. She was seventeen-years-old and Dan hadn’t been that much older. Though she hadn’t spent much time or talked with him, she felt a connection to him solely on their closeness in age. In the new world there weren’t many young people. They just couldn’t survive. Was Dan’s death further proof of that? Were the young not meant to live in this world? She wasn’t sure anymore. She’d always thought no one was more capable of surviving the dead than herself. When others needed the protection of a gun, shooting the dead from far off so they didn’t have to come near them, she delighted in getting up close, seeing the memories of who they once were in their eyes before she put them out of their misery with her beloved bat, the one weapon that felt natural in her small hands.
Lee gave Olivia’s shoulder a gentle squeeze, standing tall and stoic in his silence. When he heard of the events of the night before his face gave nothing away to the emotions that boiled up inside him. He’d brought Dan back to lif
e once before, the day the group found him overdosed on pills in the abandoned Wal-Mart pharmacy. Lee saved him and he was foolish enough to think he could continue to for the rest of Dan’s days. He’d failed him. He’d lost another one. How many more would Lee have to watch fade away before it became too much for him? He feared he’d already lost too many. That he couldn’t stand to lose another. But he knew that was unrealistic. There would always be another death to deal with, another body to bury in this world. He allowed some of his weight to rest against Olivia for once as they held each other.
Rowan Brady stood near Olivia and Lee, just close enough to feel a part of them, but just far enough away that Lee didn’t notice him. The big brute scared him, though he would never admit that to Olivia when she accused him of it late at night in bed together. Rowan wished he had Lee’s strength, stature, intimidation, and skills. He worried eventually Olivia would see Rowan for who he really was; a lost, lonely, scared man with no direction, no purpose, and nothing to offer in this world, and she would turn to the one person whom she knew before the fall of mankind…Lee. He wrestled with these thoughts because he was almost a middle-aged man, in his late thirties, and Olivia was not even a legal adult, walking that fine line between child and adulthood. He knew he should feel bad for what he was doing, but he didn’t. A part of him enjoyed her company, enjoyed the release she provided him, the feelings of pleasure in a world with little to find joy in. Her fearlessness of the dead provided him with comfort and ease. He knew if they were ever in a scrape she would run into the battle while others wouldn’t. She would fight to the end and she would without a doubt protect him, not that he couldn’t protect himself. Thanks to Lonnie he knew his way around a gun and knife pretty well, and could drop zombies as good as anyone else. But he knew there were moments he would need someone at his back. Now that Lonnie was gone, he chose Olivia to be that person for him. Little of Dan was going through his mind as he looked on at the kid’s body covered in a grey wool blanket on the floor.
Luke and Imani stood across the room on the other end of the U-shape of couches and chairs. Imani looked on with wide eyes, taking in the body, the commotion, the mixed emotions, and sadness of the group she’d only just come to know recently. Her line of vision kept moving over to Olivia with concern. She never thought in a world like this that she would be able to make a friend. The task had always proven difficult when kids were running around having fun and being kids and the world was normal. Imani wasn’t like other girls her age. When most were budding into their womanhood, focusing their attention on boys and make-up and shopping, Imani stayed where she’d always been. She enjoyed reading and daydreaming of all the things she could do and accomplish. Her clothes were functional, mismatched, and comfortable, her face untouched and natural, her hair a wild mess of curls. She didn’t groan in school when the teacher gave assignments or started a new subject. Learning was an advantage to her, a fun challenge. She excelled in science and math, a world that was mostly dominated by boys and she schooled them every single time. This did not make her popular by any means, but she never cared about being popular. Now, with everything turned upside down, she’d found a friend and she was scared to death of losing her. They’d already lost the old woman on the way over and now more from their group had fallen. What if Olivia was next? Then, Imani would be stuck alone with her dad again. She turned to look up at her father, who didn’t seem to notice. A deep sigh escaped her slightly parted lips as her eyes turned back to the heap of blanket on the floor, shielding them from the horror beneath it.
Luke Benson’s short but muscular body swayed side-to-side as he stared at Dan’s covered form. He hadn’t known the boy at all really, only traveling with him to the bunker those few days. He’d always seemed off, distant, as if something was occupying his mind that was not of this world. He’d heard the story of Anita and how Zack loved her, spent his days trying to find her when he wasn’t helping the group at the apartments, how Dan had mistaken her for a zombie and shot her as she approached Zack to embrace him, finally. It was enough to drive any man insane, like a tragic love story from one of the books Luke spent his life categorizing and placing back on the shelves of the library. The desire to reach out and hold his daughter was overwhelming in that moment. Dan’s death placed a deep-rooted fear in Luke’s heart that grabbed hold of him and wouldn’t settle. If Dan could hate the world so much that he would take himself out of it, was that possible for Imani? He knew his daughter did not love him as a daughter should love their father. She didn’t respect a single thing about him. Instead, she resented him and harbored bitter contempt for his very being. It hadn’t always been like that. He could remember when she was a little thing and she would run up to him, hug him, sit in his lap and snuggle up to his chest. His heart ached for those times again. But instead of putting his arm around her shoulder in comfort, he remained where he was, swaying slightly from fear and doubt and worry.
The people of the bunker gathered close to Mac, who spoke encouraging words of comfort and hope to them. “This young man was broken by this world. The burden of releasing others from their chains of waking-death proved too much for him to carry. It is not a job for everyone. We all make mistakes and we all have sins, but don’t forget that we are also released from them in faith. Dan did not have this faith from what I can see and he was not able to overcome the grave as we are all capable of. Would I have found this man sooner, I wish I could have showed him the way and helped to save him.”
“But what about the fact that he turned into one of them things even though he had no bite marks on him? You said so yourself, Mac. You checked him head to toe, that giant fella with the medical knowings checked him. No bites, no scratches, nothing,” a tall, robust man in canvas overalls spoke low, worry overtaking his drooping, tired eyes.
“Shawn, I wish I had the answer, I really do. Only God knows why this happened. We have to trust,” Mac said without wavering.
Several in the group looked over their shoulders so their leader and generous provider wouldn’t see them rolling their eyes. Others clung to Mac’s encouragement with their last ounce of faith, their eyes wide in hope and their hands clasped so tightly their knuckles turned bone white.
“I think it’s time we pay our respects and lay this soul to rest.”
As if the words sparked something inside them, Zack and Lee both blinked away their thoughts and walked over to Dan’s motionless body with Mac. Gretchen’s tears poured from her eyes again as she sobbed in silence. Carolyn allowed her tears to flow as well for the first time since she’d been woken up with the terrible news. Olivia now leaned into Rowan’s chest and pressed her face in to hide her over-spilling grief. Rowan wrapped both arms around her and squeezed tightly, resting his cheek atop her soft, brown hair. Imani tried to swallow, but her mouth was so dry it hurt. She coughed into her arm, trying to muffle the sound from the solemn moment. Luke’s head snapped to look at her, worry overtaking every inch of his face.
And Christine stood apart from the rest, hanging in the back, looking on at everyone else as if it were a dream. Of course, there was the thought of if she had gone to the barn a little earlier then she could have saved him from doing what he did, but then another voice told her it was only a matter of time and if she had stopped him yesterday and left as planned, he just would have done it today. Her stomach reeled at such terrible, selfish thoughts. She didn’t want to be the woman she’d become, but this world had taken over her body and made her do things she normally would never do. It wasn’t that long ago she was yelling at Liam, begging him to let in their pleading neighbors when everything started, unable to comprehend how he could be so cold and leave them outside in this mess. Now, she knew she would make the same choice. She was in survival mode and she would never be released from it until she put Liam’s journal into the hands of someone who knew what to do with the knowledge it contained and they set to work on making the world right again. Then she would be able to return to her life and
old ways, her old self. A small huff of a laugh escaped her lips. She almost believed herself that time.
XIX
It rained cold droplets on the somber group the day they put Dan in the ground. Zack, Lee, and Mac started digging the grave at daybreak and didn’t finish until late morning. When they were ready to place him in, they went back down to the bunker to let the waiting grievers know.
Everyone came up to the surface to see the body laid to rest, the travelers and the people of the bunker brought together by grief. No more than one minute above ground and the small crowd was soaked, though no one complained.
Together, Zack, Lee, and Mac grabbed hold of the rope wrapped around Dan’s body and lowered him slowly into the grave site. Once Dan was lying beneath the earth’s surface, all three men stood back up and wiped the dirt from their hands on their pants. Lee went to stand behind Christine with the others, but Zack remained by the grave, standing alone while Mac prepared himself to start the service.
Zack panted heaving breaths, wiping the sweat and rain from his brow as he leaned on his shovel next to the grave. His eyes never seemed to look up from the hole, continually staring, unblinking, at the body wrapped and bound in a stained white sheet in the mud. Christine watched Zack from the middle of the huddled mass. She studied his face, looking for any clue to his plans after his role as gravedigger came to an end.
Christine’s thoughts came to a startling halt when she felt someone’s fingers intertwine with her own. She looked down to find soft pale skin mixed with her own. Her eyes followed the arm all the way up till her eyes met her sister’s. Every muscle in Gretchen’s petite face was tight, working to keep the tears inside, to be strong. Christine gave her hand a little squeeze and forced a smile onto her lips. Gretchen pulled back a smile and held it for two seconds before her face turned to stone again.
Christine looked over her shoulder at the rest of the people gathered around her. Lee, Olivia, Rowan, and Carolyn were standing closely together, using each other for warmth and shelter from the rain. The gentle giant, Lee, seemed almost proud to provide a barrier from the weather for everyone. He stood tall, his back straight, his shoulders dropped, his chin turned slightly upward, and his arm draped lightly over Olivia and Carolyn’s shoulders. Rowan stood awkwardly on the other side of Olivia, his eyes darting back and forth between her and the reason they were all gathered there. Christine turned her gaze forward again.
Dead Soil (Book 2): Dead Road Page 16