by Jason Offutt
Fence posts had been sunk into the field and set in concrete. The place where the Mayday Little League teams used to play now looked like a pegboard; zombies stood lashed to a dozen poles, their drooling faces slack; black birds perched on some of them, like scarecrows gone wrong. The eyes of some had already turned milky; they were the first, the mothers and sons, friends and neighbors of the remaining citizens of Mayday. The rest were Lazarus’ monsters and they were fresh.
Walter hated the Field. He knew he’d have to bathe and change his clothes before going to bed, the taste of the peaches on Lacy’s breath and the smell of her hair long gone from his mind. He shrunk from the zombies he slunk by, their rotting, hollow faces gaunt, a soft, mindless moan a one-note Gregorian chant. Three posts stood empty around the pitcher’s mound. Walter made his way there, almost bumping into Florence Geddy tied to a post. Her pale green hospital scrubs were stained with blood. Walter figured it wasn’t her own.
“I wouldn’t worry about them, Seidel,” Ken shouted from the gate. “They don’t bite much.”
Asshole. He stopped at the pitcher’s mound and lashed the ropes around the three poles, his eyes nervously dancing between the knots he tied and Lazarus’ prize at home plate. The monstrosity stood on its hind legs, the chains around its waist and legs keeping it upright, affixed to the metal poles of the backstop. It was Mac. Walter didn’t know what the hunters did to find the lowland gorilla. They must have gone to Louisville on a run and stopped by the zoo. But why? For fear, that’s why. The beast was huge, six and a half feet tall and at least 500 pounds. He was pretty sure gorillas weren’t supposed to get that big; why did Lazarus have to find a giant? The beast swayed on its hind legs like Jeremy, like the rest of the brain-dead creatures in the Field, its eyes white, its great, furry muzzle crusted with dried foam and blood. Its moan mingled with all the others. Lazarus let Mac play with newcomers in the Corral in front of the high school when the townsfolk started to get antsy. Walter saw this gently swaying beast fully animate when Ken Gundy pushed a fat teenage boy into the Corral, the bleachers filled with the remaining people of Mayday; Mac pounced on him, ripping the screaming boy’s throat out with those great teeth and disemboweled him in seconds. The townspeople cheered. That’s the night he met Lacy, throwing up behind the high school. “We don’t have TV,” Lazarus told Walter the next morning at the Whistlestop. “We gotta give them something.” Walter couldn’t finish his breakfast that day.
He tied a cow hitch in the last rope and walked slowly away from the Carlsoners, Florence Geddy, the birds and the nightmare chained to the fence. Walter wanted to run. He wanted to sprint from that cursed field and never come back, but that would be weak. He couldn’t be weak in front of Ken Gundy. That would be like intentionally cutting yourself while hiding from a zombie hoard. He’d smell it. That’s one thing he couldn’t let Ken Gundy think, he was weak. Gundy was a psychopath.
“Nice work, Seidel,” he said, locking the gate after Walter walked through and slipping the long keychain back around his neck. “Most people freak out when we take the monsters for a walk to the park.”
“I’m not most people,” Walter said. His stomach hurt. Don’t puke, damn it. Don’t puke.
Ken Gundy ran his hand across his crew cut and grinned. Walter had never seen the man grin. “I know that. It’s not everybody who can bang the girlfriend of the man who didn’t die. I gotta hand it to you, Seidel. That takes some cahoneys.”
Holy shit. Walter’s stomach clenched. Gundy knows. Dear God, Gundy knows. No secrets in a small town.
Gundy slapped Walter on the shoulder. “Don’t worry about it, Seidel,” the psychopath said. “I won’t say anything.” Gundy pulled a butterfly knife from his pants pocket and started flipping it in his hand. “I hate that fat bastard. The sooner he’s gone, the better.”
August 1: Hoosier National Forest, Bedford, Indiana
Chapter 16
It rained in Indiana. Doug sat under a shelter house roof in Hoosier National Forest just south of Bedford and listened to raindrops fall in the early morning. He hadn’t seen rain in two months and had forgotten how peaceful raindrops were when they danced off leaves; it’s not like there’s that many trees back home in Kansas. Sure, there were some, but not like this. The light patter of water in the darkness as he sat under the wood-shingled roof of the shelter brought on a smile. How many times had he smiled in the past few months? Not too goddamned many.
Out of Council Bluffs, Iowa, the small caravan made it to Indianapolis before turning south, following the railroad tracks that had suddenly cut toward Kentucky. Stopping for gas and pee breaks more times than he liked. Terry called on the walkie-talkie from Andi’s Subaru an hour west of Indianapolis. “It’s six o’clock,” he said. “I’m getting hungry. Let’s stop in Indianapolis for the night.”
No, Terry. Jesus. “That was a big city,” Doug said. “That means too many zombies.”
The walkie-talkie went quiet for a moment, then Terry’s voice flooded the cab. “All the better. I’ve seen too many ugly zombies. We should camp out in a Hooters.”
Nikki leaned into the front seat and grabbed Doug’s walkie-talkie hand. She squeezed it and depressed the push-to-talk button. “Asshole,” she said.
Indianapolis was gone when they got there, buildings just jagged remains, the ground littered with bomb craters. Jesus. Who’d Indianapolis piss off? The only landmark Doug could make out was Lucas Oil Stadium, nearly intact on the decimated skyline. He hoped the Colts had a good season. Nothing smoldered, the destruction was old, like a World War II city left as a memorial. They followed the railroad tracks an hour and a half south and turned off the highway and onto a rural road, away from the tracks that were starting to go west again. They pulled off Indiana 37 and onto South County Road 350 West, passing a school bus abandoned on the rural highway, its once bright yellow paint dulled by months of accumulated dust, windows fogged with dirt. If there was any carnage inside the bus, they thankfully couldn’t see it. They turned with the signs toward a campground just out of sight of the railroad tracks. A campground with cabins, enough for all of them. Comfortable beds, the view of a lake and no vehicles for miles, vehicles that had owners who may still be wandering around the forest. Doug, Jenna, Terry and Nikki shared one cabin. Andi and Donnie each had one alone. The cars sat parked underneath a canopy of bur oak, eastern red cedar and Washington hawthorn. When the sky began to rumble, Terry and Andi pulled the picnic tables from the shelter house and Donnie drove the truck under the cedar tiled roof to keep their folded camp in the bed dry.
Doug and Terry sat in camp chairs next to the Silverado, just far enough under the shelter roof to stay out of the rain. “Sure we’re doing the right thing, boss?” Terry asked before he followed Nikki to bed, everyone else already in their cabins. Doug doubted Andi drifted off to sleep quickly; the Army does things to people. He didn’t have a fucking clue about Donnie, who was a problem he knew they’d have to deal with, hopefully before whatever little monster he had crawling inside his head decided to burst out. Maybe they should just drive off and leave him there, in the camp. Maybe– “Nikki’s tired of driving. I am, too.”
Hell, who isn’t? Doug grew up in Paola, Kansas, just like his parents and their parents. He took some business classes at Fort Scott Community College, living with his uncle’s family, but two years later he went back to Paola and started working in the Walmart Supercenter garage, changing oil and fixing tires. With a loan from the First Option Bank, he opened Doug’s Muffler and Brakes when he was twenty-six and was glued to Paola like a scrapbooker had stuck him there. He was tired of driving, too.
“So’s Jenna,” Doug said. “She wants to find someplace and just sit.”
“What’s wrong with that?” Terry took a drink of water; he’d taken it easy on the beer tonight. “Hey, man we got a good thing here. Yeah, the world’s gone to shit, but we haven’t. We have two great ladies sleeping in that cabin over there.” He paused; thunder punctuated the sil
ence like the night was an ‘80s rock song. “We could just stay here. I saw a sign for Louisville on the way in. We could get whatever we need to keep us alive. We could get solar panels and a DVD player and fish all fucking day and just live. And it could be normal, like we were camping. You know, forever.”
Camping forever. Yeah, but how long before we started to wish each other dead? People in close quarters always got sick of each other, no matter how much they cared for one another. The zombies wouldn’t even have to help. Doug drew in a deep breath, his eyes on his hands.
“Terry, a person can be alone. A person can be alone for a long time. But people need people, or their world goes crazy. We’re not enough people to stop that. We’re not even enough people to protect each other if something big happens.”
“Dude,” Terry said. Doug looked up; his friend was amazingly sober. “We have been enough people so far.”
Fuck. “But I’m talking big. Really big. It was lucky you got into that truck on I-80 and it was even luckier that it started.”
The keys. Terry remembered the keys. They lay on the dirty floor of the cab next to snack wrappers, when they could have just as easily been in the pants pocket of the zombie truck driver trying to eat its way into the cab.
“If you hadn’t gotten that truck started and plowed through that hoard of zombies, we wouldn’t be sitting here listening to the storm.”
“So?”
“So I’m saying we got here on my good looks and your personality.” Doug reached into the cooler and pulled out a Budweiser. The crack of the tab drowned out the storm for a decisecond. “What happens when the next truck doesn’t start, Terry? What happens when the goddamned dead outnumber us and we’re not so lucky? What if we stay here and a hundred come walking through the trees and start pawing at the windows of the cabins because they smell us? What if we only have a handful of bullets left because we used the rest hunting deer and rabbits?” He stared at Terry, his friend’s face hidden by the darkness. “If we find a place with people, we’ll be safer than we are on our own.”
“Depends on the people we find.” Terry rose and grabbed a beer from the cooler. “I’m calling it a night. I got the 3 a.m. to 6 shift.”
***
Doug realized the rain must have stopped, because otherwise, how would he have heard the branch snap? Something rustled in his sleep. A line of drool from his sagging head to his right shoulder broke as his eyes crept open, the light of the waxing half-moon through the parting clouds glittered off raindrops clinging to leaves. Something moved. Things weren’t supposed to move. Wasn’t that why Doug was out there, to make sure things didn’t move? Whatever wasn’t supposed to move moved again. A grin grew across Doug’s bristly face. It’s okay. It’s just a Boy Scout. I was a Boy Scout. No, no, I was an Eagle Scout. Boy Scouts are just fi– What the fuck? Doug shook his head to drive himself fully awake as the Scout loomed toward him, arms raised, bottom jaw moving up and down like a machine. Doug’s rifle lay on the concrete pad beside him, but his aluminum crutches leaned against his chair. He grabbed one, the other clattered to the ground as he lifted it up and hit the kid, maybe twelve years old, in the middle of that tan shirt and shoved. The small Zombie Scout staggered backward and fell, the trousers Doug knew were olive green under a thick crust of dried mud, kept moving as if the zombie kid didn’t know it wasn’t walking anymore.
“Oh shit.”
At least a dozen of the little monsters staggered out of the trees toward the cabins. Their troop leader staggered with them, the felt campaign hat lay askew on its head, kept there by the strap. The low moan of the zombies in chorus blended naturally with the crickets. The image of the school bus ran through Doug’s head. They were coming camping on the school bus and got caught up in all this. They probably started marching for help when they found somebody in trouble. Somebody with a bulbous stalk growing out of its chest. The Zombie Scout at Doug’s feet pulled itself up by the shelter pole; Doug pushed it back down, its moan a little louder. If it didn’t eat him soon, Doug knew it would scream. The thought of that sound sent terror shaking through his shoulders. His wounded foot pushed the rifle under the Silverado as Doug swung it underneath him, leaning his weight on the crutch.
“Hey,” he yelled toward the cabins. “A little help.”
The Scout, its sash dotted with badges, pulled itself back to its feet and lunged at Doug who wondered if eating him would count toward its Wilderness Survival badge. The little monster’s head lurched to the right as a gunshot filled the morning; its body followed and the Zombie Scout dropped to the wet ground. Andi appeared next to Doug, sidearm raised in a modified weaver stance. “It’s not safe out here,” she said.
No shit.
“Get to the cabin. We’ll leave at dawn.”
Doug started to say ‘I’m sorry,’ but it didn’t come out. Andi walked past him firing shot after shot; former Boy Scouts, two probably around the age Doug was when he went for Eagle, fell as Andi pushed bullets through what was left of their brains.
Doug glanced at Donnie’s cabin as he lurched toward the door of his, the boy’s face, white in the moonlight, was pressed against the glass in, what was that look? Horror? Doug twisted the handle to Cabin No. 5 and nearly fell inside.
***
They pulled back onto South County Road 350 West at 6:14 a.m., the morning summer sun already bathing the day in warmth. Jenna sat shotgun, the military gun belt around her waist growing strangely comfortable there. The road again. All she wanted was a bed and running water and maybe a four-star restaurant. The restaurant was negotiable; Doug’s cooking was beginning to taste good, so she knew her palate was probably ruined forever. The bed and running water, however, were not negotiable. The one thing that kept her sanity was Doug’s insistence there was civilization somewhere, civilization with soft beds. They’d passed a sign that read ‘Welcome to Kentucky,’ about twenty miles ago. Jenna hoped they’d find civilization there, although all she knew about Kentucky was bourbon and chicken. Either one would be nice.
“Are we there yet?” she asked through a mouthful of processed cheese from a cheese and spiced sausage combo snack pack they’d picked up at a convenience store outside Indianapolis. The package claimed real cheddar cheese, although the word “real” was put in quotation marks to get around all the potential legal claims that it most certainly was not. Jenna had tried to read the label before she ripped it open, but the words were tiny and besides, what does it matter anymore?
“Is that the way it’s going to be today princess?” Doug asked. Doug. Sweet Doug. Jenna knew she’d never have given the tall, averagely handsome man a second look before the world fell. If she walked into his muffler shop in wherethehellever Kansas, she never remembered where he was from, she’d tell him what was wrong with her car, hand over her keys and that would be it until he ran her credit card (okay, her parent’s credit card). She wouldn’t have looked at his strong hands, or his straight, white teeth, or the cute dimple in his right cheek when he smiled. He was a mechanic; Jenna would have looked right through him. If it wasn’t for Doug she might be dead, or worse, all alone in this world of walking nightmares.
She shook her head. “No. I’m just bored.”
“Then I’ve got just the thing for you,” he said, punching a button on the stereo. Blue lights came to life. “You can try and find something on the radio.”
Yech. She hit the scan button and listened to static run up and down the AM dial. Doug had once heard a recorded message directing people to a safety shelter in Kansas City, Missouri, and was certain another message was out there, somewhere. They just had to keep listening. Jenna never mentioned to him the safety shelter in Kansas City was a death house. Doug knew that well enough.
“Doug,” Nikki said from the back seat, a spiral-bound book in her hands, on the cover the California Pacific Coast Highway under the words ‘Rand McNally Road Atlas. Terry was in Andi’s car again, this time in the lead. ‘Just pay attention to what she says and does,�
�� Doug told Terry in front of Nikki, and only Nikki. ‘I trust her, but we still don’t know her.’ Donnie followed in the Silverado. “Are we headed toward this wall the soldier talked about? The one in Dyersburg, Tennessee?”
“That’s the plan.”
That’s your plan, ran through Jenna’s head.
“Well, following the railroad has taken us way out of the way. If we stop following the track and hit the major highways, we’ll get there by lunch.”
“No shit?”
The hiss of wind entered the cabin as Jenna cracked the window and tossed out the junk food wrapper. She fingered the window toggle and the glass closed. “Guys suck at directions,” Jenna said. “Universal fact.”
“What do we need to do?” Doug asked, ignoring Jenna.
Nikki wiped her finger across the page. “Looks like if we keep going south, we’ll run into Interstate 69 South. That’s the first step, but the driving will be easier than Bumfuck County Road Slowpoke.”
Jenna laughed. She knew she wouldn’t have hooked up with Doug before the Falling, but she thought she could have been friends with Nikki. Nikki was solid. Smart, funny, just pretty enough to make Jenna look prettier.
“Terry, Andi,” Doug spoke into the walkie-talkie.
“Yes’m, boss.”
Doug could count on his dick the number of times he’d seen Terry take something seriously. Just once. This wasn’t it. “Change of plan. Nikki found a faster way to Dyersburg.”