by Jason Offutt
“Looks like we can wait a long time,” Doug said. “Except for a flushing toilet, this is almost as good as my house back in Paola.”
Nikki drained her wineglass and handed it to Jenna who reached for the bottle. “Yes, we can. But how long should we wait? I’m ready to say fuck it.”
Yes, how long? Doug sat back in the canvas chair, a warm beer gripped tightly in his hands. How long? Going back to Omaha, back to the bastards who sent them to the Community to die was his idea. But damn it, he had to know. He had to know why. He had to know if there were other people out there, uninfected people. Nikki had been behind him for that. She was also willing to follow the train. But there was no train and she was nearly finished following him. “I don’t know,” he said. “We have to stay together. We have to. Maybe I’m wrong.” Maybe the doctor was wrong. Maybe we don’t need people. We are people. “What does everybody think?”
“Safe. I want someplace safe. Safe and away from everything,” Jenna said. She’d filled Nikki’s empty glass and was working on her own.
“Anyplace but Nebraska,” Terry said, burping.
“I was headed for Colorado before I met you.” Andi gently pulled the last strip of meat off a rabbit bone and tossed it into the grass. “Mountains and fresh air. Few people also means few monsters.”
“Not Colorado.” Nikki swirled the wine in her glass. “The Marstens had a circle around Denver on their map. It didn’t look good.”
“Marstens?” Andi asked.
Doug waved his hand. “Survivalists. Knew their shit.” He turned toward Nikki. “Just because Denver’s gone doesn’t mean we still can’t go to Colorado.”
“Colorado’s nice.” The campsite fell silent and everyone turned toward Donnie. He sat in a canvas chair, gripping a Pepsi so tight the sides crinkled, his eyes were level with everyone else’s. As he sat, looking at all the Bad People look at him, he dropped his gaze toward the Pepsi can. “I said Colorado’s nice. I was born in Colorado. We should go there.”
Doug smiled. “Maybe, Donnie. Maybe.”
The next morning, they heard a train.
July 31: Mayday, Kentucky
Chapter 13
“Thank you for having us to your house,” Bryce McKenney said, raising his wine glass in a toast, the Cabernet Sauvignon that half-filled the glass as dark as blood. Lazarus’ house was simple. After all, before he rose from the dead he worked at the plastic factory outside town, but since the world fell, it had become the nicest house in Mayday. Lazarus held up his own glass and motioned it toward McKenney before taking a drink and falling back into his meal. McKenney sat at the head of the table; Lazarus had insisted. A medium-well steak and mashed potatoes were in front of him on the china Lazarus’ parents got for their wedding. Walter Seidel saw the cow through the gate again; this time he brought it home; the potatoes were nearing the end of their usefulness, but Gwenny peeled off the sprouts with the skins and boiled the Yukon Golds, mashing them with butter and reconstituted powdered milk and it was delicious. McKenney’s wife, Tabitha’s, steak was well done, their son Kyle’s – what was he? Nine? Ten? – ground into a hamburger he ate without a bun.
Lazarus smiled at the man, his teeth stained from years of smoking, although he’d given that up when he rose from the dead. Can’t tempt God too much. “The pleasure’s mine, Bryce.” He stopped, his knife in mid-cut and looked up in concern. “May I call you Bryce?”
Bryce smiled back, his teeth clean and white from years of repeated dental visits and daily care. Don’t gloss over floss. “Of course.”
“How’s your new house?” Lazarus lay silverware on the plate and swirled his wine. He’d read somewhere swirling pulls oxygen into the wine and improves the smell. Whatever. Any wine without a screw-on lid tasted awful, Lazarus didn’t care what it smelled like.
“It’s fine.” Tabitha dabbed her lips with a white, cloth napkin. “There’s plenty of room for us; too much, actually. How–”
“I don’t like the man,” Kyle said as he twisted his fork in the potato on his plate and stared at his hand.
Lazarus cleared his throat and sat his wine glass on the tablecloth. “Man?” he asked. “What man?”
Kyle dropped his fork; it rang the plate as it bounced. “The man outside my window.”
“Kyle,” Tabitha snapped.
A laugh. The faces at the table turned toward Lazarus, who raised his mostly empty wine glass and nodded. “A toast to honesty,” he said, the words smooth as soft butter. He turned toward Kyle, his eyes didn’t seem to blink. “Now, what man?”
Kyle turned his face from the person, the scary, scary person across the table from him, the scary person who didn’t blink. He stared at his plate, the half-eaten hamburger now a rancid lump. “The man I saw standing outside, staring in my window last night.”
Lazarus put his elbows on the table and leaned on his fists. “What did he look like?”
Kyle shook his head slowly. “I don’t know. I got up to pee and when I came back to the room, somebody was standing in my window. It was too dark to see what he looked like, except he was tall and skinny, like Jay Baruchel.”
Jay Baruchel? Who the hell is Jay Baruchel? Jeremy. “It was probably just Jeremy. He patrols Mayday after dark. You know, to keep things secure. He was just checking on you to make sure our newest guests were safe.” And he probably smelled you. Young and fresh and oh, so tender.
“Well,” Bryce said. “He frightened our son. I appreciate all you’ve done for us, Mr. Lazarus, but we’re all terrified. Kyle especially. The past two months have been so hard on him.”
Ungrateful bastard. “Of course, Mr. McKenney. I’ll see what I can do about Jeremy. It is very nice here in Mayday. The townspeople are friendly and the fence keeps us safe from all sorts of troubles, from zombies, to bears, to the worst of the lot, people. You’ll like it here. So will Kyle.” He nodded at the boy, whose eyes were still stuck to his plate. “One of our school teachers is even planning to start classes in September for the children left in town. I hope you’ll stick around.”
Bryce drained his wine glass and sat it on the white tablecloth. “We appreciate your hospitality, we really do; but staying is something we’ll have to discuss as a family. We were heading for the survival shelter in Kansas City, Missouri, when we found you,” he said. “It was on the radio before the power went down and there’s signs for it all along the interstate. We might keep going that way.”
Lazarus’ smile never left his face. Bryce McKenney suddenly wanted to punch that face, right in the mouth. Lazarus saw this and his smile grew bigger. “You’re welcome to stay in Mayday as long as you’d like, Mr. McKenney, but I understand. I understand all too well.”
Bryce poured himself more wine and topped of his wife’s glass. He motioned the bottle to Lazarus who ignored him. They ate the rest of the meal in silence.
***
Gwenny walked into Lazarus’ dining room to the warm glow of tungsten lighting Lazarus’ house, one of four places in town kept in electricity with a generator. Ken Gundy had escorted the McKenneys back to the Stinson house where they might just stay up all night wondering why their stomachs hurt.
“If this town is so safe, why do we need an armed guard?” she’d heard the dad ask as he stood on the front step, his voice loud and angry.
“You can never be too safe,” Lazarus said, calm dripping off him. Gwenny wondered why the man who never died hadn’t gone into politics.
She handed Lazarus a Bushmills on the rocks; she knew what he drank, she knew almost everything about him. Gwenny held a cold Kentucky Bourbon Barrel Ale in her right hand, the slightest hints of vanilla and oak from her first drink still on her tongue. The generators that kept the refrigerators at the Whistlestop running nonstop also produced enough ice to keep everything cold she wanted to keep cold. Lazarus’ steaks, that bitch Lacy Tomlinson’s bologna, Frog Keller’s popsicles and her local craft brew. She had to have something to take the edge off the end of the world.
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br /> “Did you get Ophiocordon in the McKenney’s meals?” Lazarus asked, not looking up, his attention on the Bushmills.
Gwenny sat her beer on the table and slipped into Lazarus’ lap. “Just like yesterday.” She kissed his forehead. “How long before they pop?”
Lazarus slipped his left hand under Gwenny’s thin cotton shirt and the cup of her bra, her breast firm in his hand. You can fake love, you can fake loyalty, but you can’t fake being twenty-two. “They should be ready for the Program tomorrow. I had Ken Gundy get their beds in the greenhouse ready this morning, just in case the kid went early.”
The kid. She felt a bit guilty about that. He hadn’t experienced life, hadn’t had his first kiss and was years away from driving. His biggest accomplishment was Little League. Oh, well. She’d opened an Ophiocordon capsule and stirred the white powder into the McKenney’s mashed potatoes like she had in their pancake batter that morning and the fresh bread the day before; but the kid didn’t eat his mashed potatoes and he didn’t touch the pancakes. The boy had Cheerios for breakfast. She didn’t know about the bread, but he had to get some of it. Gwenny knew what the white powder did and she knew these people would die, but it was for the greater good. Lazarus’ plan would create an army he would use to take back the world from the chaos caused by the very pill he was using to save it. Then humans could repopulate the Earth. She liked that idea and when that happened, she would be queen. Gwenny laughed as she felt Lazarus’ penis harden beneath her.
“It’s not Saturday,” she said, biting her bottom lip.
Lazarus reached behind her and unhooked her bra. “It is in Australia.”
***
Tabitha woke with a cough; it rumbled deep in her chest, like her mother’s cough as she stood over the stove in the morning, a Pall Mall between her lips while she fried eggs in the bacon grease she kept in a coffee can underneath the sink. Oh, God. “Bryce.” She reached beside her, but the side of the bed where her husband had gone to sleep next to her was empty. “Bryce,” she said louder, another spasm of coughing racked her lungs. A different ‘asm racked her body during the night after Bryce had drifted into sleep. As she lay in bed, the silence of night coming through the open windows broken only by the distant underlying hum of the generators at the high school and the café, Tabitha felt a desire burning in her she hadn’t felt for a long time. It built deep inside her as Bryce began to snore, the loud rattle that used to drive her downstairs to sleep on the couch filled the room. Nope, wasn’t him. Lazarus? No, no. That man was disgusting. But there was something about him, something raw, something powerful. She lay stiff and trembled on the wooden poster bed staring at the canopy; the near half-moon peeking through the window cast a dull gray light around the room. Tabitha pinched her fists tightly enough to hurt. No, it couldn’t be the thought of Lazarus that washed her body in pleasure. But wha– Oh, my God. Oh, MY God. OH, MY GOD. Tabitha had always had strong ejaculations during orgasms. That night she had to go to the bathroom and find a towel to sleep on. Bryce never woke.
“Bryce,” she said again, her voice no more than a whisper. “Shit” doesn’t even begin to describe how I feel. Tabitha rolled over and pushed herself to a half-sitting position and she saw blood. A dark red circle of dry crust decorated Bryce’s pale yellow pillow. Oh, no. “Bryce,” she called, louder this time.
Tabitha crawled out of bed, the heat of the late July morning already crept into the little house. It’s hot. So hot. Her body ached like she’d been in a car accident, her chest screaming from the impact with the steering wheel that never happened. Why? She coughed again; the pain almost sent her to the floor. Dots of dried blood on the hardwood led her from the bedroom into the hallway; Tabitha leaned on the wall as she stumbled forward to keep herself from falling. A new spot appeared on the floor, wet and shiny next to dull rust-red droplets. What the? Another joined the first wet spot, then another. Tabitha ran a hand across her upper lip and held it in front of her face. Her skin glistened in fresh blood. “Bryce.”
Her husband sat in the kitchen, a cup of cold tea in front of him, a copper kettle sat on a colorful crochet potholder in the middle of the maple surface of the table. Oh, Bryce. His face was ashen, the tissues shoved into his nostrils red with blood. She let go of the wall and wobbled on weak legs. She fell against the table; the chair across from her toppled and clattered onto the floor. “Bryce,” she whispered. Thirsty. So thirsty. Tabitha fell into a chair and reached for him. Bryce grasped her hand in his. Dear, Lord, he’s burning up.
“I thought tea would help,” he said, forcing a smile, the dried blood on his upper lip cracked from the movement. “I should have asked for Mr. T.”
Bryce joked when he was scared. He always did and the jokes were always bad. “Look at it this way,” he’d told his mother as she lay on a gurney, a nurse prepping her for surgery to remove part of her large intestine, the part that carried a massive tumor. “Now you’ll have a semi-colon.” His mother, sweet, sweet Momma Bert, didn’t think it was funny. Maybe it was because of all the morphine, or maybe it was because Bryce always made jokes at the wrong time. Tabitha knew “Mr. T” was a Scared Bryce joke. He must feel as bad as she did; he sure as hell looked it.
“We need to get to Lazarus. Maybe there’s a doctor in town,” Tabitha wheezed, the pain in her chest now sharp, like a heart attack. Not a heart attack. Who’s going to take care of Kyle? Oh, my God, Kyle. “Is Kyle okay?” She tried to push herself up from the table, but the strength wasn’t there. Tears burst from her eyes. “I have to make sure my baby’s okay.” She tried to stand again, but a voice from the hallway stopped her.
“What’s goin’ on?”
Tabitha turned as quickly as she dared, vertigo threatening to dump her onto the worn kitchen linoleum. Kyle stood in the doorway rubbing his eyes, his red Washington Nationals T-shirt wrinkled from sleep, a drool stain on the left shoulder. Always the left. Kyle’s eyes grew wide and his hands dropped to his sides as he looked at his parents and screamed. “Your eyes, Mom. Your eyes.”
Tears, they’re just tears. I was worried about you, formed in her mind, but died at her throat when a wet, red dot appeared on her forearm. Tabitha raised a weak, shaking hand to her face and touched her tears. She was crying blood.
“Kyle,” Bryce wheezed, a coughing fit struck him and a clot of blood landed with a splat on the tabletop. “Oh, God. Kyle, go get that Lazarus. Tell him we need a doctor.” Black spots swarmed before his eyes; the kitchen began to spin.
The boy ran to the kitchen door and threw it open. The man he knew as Mr. Gundy, the man who told them to stay close to him in the darkness as he escorted them from Mr. Lazarus’ house, a scary man with a military haircut and hard, cold eyes, stood in the doorway. He grinned; the smile looked to Kyle like a snake’s.
“Good morning,” Ken Gundy said, his voice low and emotionless. “Just stopped by to see if you fine folks needed anything.”
***
The world looked like it was underwater. Where am I? A gymnasium? What? A basketball goal hung directly over Tabitha’s head, the bars holding it to the tall ceiling distorted in her swimming eyes. God, it’s hot. It’s so hot. She reached up to wipe the sweat from her face, but her arms wouldn’t move; neither would her legs. What’s happening here? The pain was worse than a car crash now, like something was building in her, ready to burst out, but not like her orgasm in the night. Oh, no, not at all. That was right. This was something wrong.
“Bryce,” she said, although she didn’t know if sound came from her mouth. “Bryce, honey. Bryce?”
Neck muscles screamed as Tabitha turned her head looking for her husband. Yes, it was a gymnasium. Morning sunlight from thin windows that lined the tops of the high walls revealed a grinning purple dog painted on one cinderblock wall, the words Terrance County Bulldogs circled it. Conference title banners hung from the rafters. A noise. A familiar humming noise lay under the structure of this fuzzy dream. Must be the humidifiers. A dozen humidifiers scattered the
floor amongst hospital gurneys and portable heaters, the kind the Redskins used on the sidelines in December. The room felt like a greenhouse. Why would the gymnasium be a greenhouse? She tried to squint through her thick vision and saw things that looked like bodies strapped to the gurneys in the distance. Everything’s in the distance. Things hung from the bodies, things that looked like garden hoses drooped from their chests, over the side of the gurney and ended in a bloomed, wilted flower. Barbells loaded with steel weights sat on the floor around the tables, chains connected to the barbells lay in piles like someone had unraveled a sweater.
A face suddenly loomed over her. She wanted to scream, but had forgotten how. Lazarus. What was he wearing? A hospital mask?
“Good morning, Mrs. McKenney,” he said, the words distant. “Sorry to hear you’re not feeling well.”
My family. “My family,” came out in a whisper. “Where’s my family?”
A smile broke over Lazarus’ face She could tell by the skin around his eyes. “They’re here, Mrs. McKenney,” he said. “Not to worry.” He paused, faking a look of concern; the smile faded but didn’t vanish. “Well, maybe a little. You see; your husband is dead.” Lazarus swung the wheeled table on its wheels and Tabitha’s world reeled. Her stomach threatened to come up, but there was nothing in it to vomit.
Bryce. My God, Bryce. Bryce McKenney lay beside her, his face covered by a fine gray mold. “Bryce.”
Lazarus stood between them, hiding Bryce from her view. “He gave his all for this town, Mrs. McKenney. You should be proud.”
Bryce is dead, wandered her fevered mild, looking for a place to grab hold, but it couldn’t. “Where’s Kyle?” she asked. “Where’s my son?”
This time Lazarus’ smile disappeared. “He’s fine. Healthy, in fact, which causes some concern.” Lazarus sat with one cheek on Tabitha’s gurney. “Gwenny said Kyle didn’t eat his pancakes. Why didn’t Kyle eat his pancakes?”