ZWD: King of an Empty City

by Thomas Kroepfl

  “Is that better? Can you hear me now?”

  “Oh yes, much better,” I said, and just to keep him talking and to help him believe I couldn’t hear him before, I asked, “What was that you were saying about jams?”

  “No, James, one of my people. He thinks you’re a warrior, a threat. I think you’re nothing more than a pain in my ass.”

  “I would be offended if that didn’t seem to be the general consensus about me.”

  “Ha, ha, ha, a pain in the ass and funny. Cowboy, I’m going to kill you tonight.”

  “I kill me too.”

  “No, I’m going to kill you. I’ve doused the house with gasoline and in a moment I’m going to close this door again and block it so you can’t get out, and I’m going to walk through the house setting things on fire and let it burn down on top of you.”

  “So why tell me all this?”

  “Call it respect. You’ve managed to galvanize these people into having hope. I can respect that. It won’t do them any good, and with your death, I get everyone back under control.”

  “How did you have them under control again?”

  “They feared us.”

  “Yeah, about that. Since I’m about to die this horrible death under a burning house, do you mind doing the super-villain thing and answering a few questions before you kill me?” There was a long silence, and then I heard the sound of a gun being readied to fire. Little did he know I had no plans of charging that opening and fighting my way out. I just wanted the fresh air and time to think.

  “Sure, why not. What do you want to know?”

  “What the fuck are you doing?”

  “I’m making an empire.”

  “But why the zombies? What are you doing with them?”

  “Oh man, that’s the greatest workforce ever.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “I use them to power my building.”

  “Power your building? How? You suck at this super-villain sharing thing, just so you know.”

  “Oh, you want me to spell it all out for you. That it?”

  “Duh, yes! What do you do with the people? That kid said he was in a net. Why are they in nets? What are the zombies powering? What the fuck are you doing?”

  “Cowboy, have you ever wanted to be somebody? I’m assuming you’re a nobody. Before all this I was a nobody, still am, but I see an opportunity here to build an empire, and I goddamn well am going to build it. I was a nobody drug dealer making meth out of bathtubs and car trunks. Shake and bake bottles, all that shit. My shit was good too. Did I make money? No, not like some assholes did. I’d bust my ass and get shit from it.

  “Then the zombies came and took out all my competition. It’s a simple plan, really. I keep cooking my shit and I pass it out for whatever you bring me. I think the government will come along soon enough. But if I work fast, I can cook enough to hook most of this city and they’ll bring me all the shit I want, so when things come back to normal, I’ll be the king on the top of the mountain. Really, I have a house picked out in West Little Rock that sits up on the bluff overlooking the river.”

  “So what do you use the zombies for?”

  “We have a conveyor belt we put them all on and as they trudge along trying to catch their food, they power the equipment we need to cook large batches of meth.”

  “And the people you take, the ones in the nets?”

  “Carrots on a stick. We hang them in nets in front of the zombies and those gruesome fucks will walk forever trying to catch them.”

  “Don’t you just need gas or propane to make that stuff?”

  “You need electricity to see what you’re doing. We had this idea before the zombies came along, but we were going to use dogs or horses to power the turbines to make our electricity. Work off the grid. My partner got caught once and did two years because the meter man said they were using too much power for the house. The zombies were just convenient. And they don’t eat much. One person in a net can keep them going for weeks. Naturally, we lose some of them. Some of the zombies get lucky and get a bite in, but then we let the victims turn and add them to the belts and hang another person up there, and things go on. Genius, huh?”

  “I have to admit, it really is, except that part about hooking everyone on meth. That’s lame.”

  “Ha, what easier way to control a population? If I want a new car, they’ll bring me one. If I want women, someone will sell their daughter to get a rock. Motherfucker, I got it made.”

  About that time I heard a muffled voice talking to him. “No trace of her at all?” he asked. The muffled voice said something else in long detail.

  “Cowboy, it looks like your woman got away for now. But she won’t for long.” He turned to the muffled voice and said, “Get everyone together. I want her found.”

  There was some movement outside and he closed the covering of the crawlspace. Before he sealed it off he left me with these words. “It was nice talking to you. I’m going to find your bitch and make her my first ho, so while you’re burning under there, I want you to think about her sucking my dick morning, noon, and night.” Then the covering was swung back into place and something was wedged against it. I heard him go back inside and stop every so often. A moment later, I could hear the crackle of the fires he was setting and the heat started to seep through the floor, along with smoke. Then, I heard the truck start up and drive off.

  I lay there with my face on the ground, studying my surroundings with the light of the glow stick. My fever was getting worse and my coughing was so hard it was hurting my chest and giving me a headache. My hands were covered in blood and I was about to throw up again. On the bright side, I was warm. I crawled over to the crawlspace opening and tried pushing the door, but it wouldn’t budge. He’d propped something in front of it to keep me in here. The hinges were on the inside, but they looked rusted in place. They were sunk with flatheads into concrete. I started emptying my pockets and taking inventory again, a lot of lighters, a lot of knives, and a hammer.

  I started banging away at the door, trying to bust it open. This wasn’t the normal sheet metal fabricated door; this stuff was something heavier. I tried using the knife blades as a screwdriver to work the screws out, but the rust was too thick. Behind me, flames were starting to drip through the floor and smoke was filling up the place. The cuts on my hands were bleeding again, making it hard to use the knife, and I thought I cut myself again several times trying to get those damned screws to move.

  With the glow stick in my mouth, I placed the blade of one of the knives in between the door and the jam and snapped the blade tip off, giving me a makeshift flathead. I put it against the head of the screw and started pounding on the handle with the hammer, using it as a chisel. With each strike there was a tiny spark and I thought, “If I blow up, I blow up, I really don’t have much to lose now.” After ten or twelve strikes, one of the six screw heads busted off. I quickly went to work on the other five. As I knocked off the fourth screw head, the floor collapsed in behind me and I could feel real heat from the flames. I didn’t bother looking back; I just scrunched my feet under me as far as I could. When the last screw head came off, I hammered at the door, but whatever he’d placed on the other side to keep me in was still there doing its job. I spun around on my back and kicked with both feet. It gave a little and I laid my head back on the ground and looked up, only to see flames dancing around the gas lines.

  In a fit of panic, I kicked the hell out of that door till my feet hurt. After the fifth kick, I felt air pour into the crawlspace and I could see that the side where the hinge was had pushed out a little. I started kicking at that spot till it was wide enough for me to get my arm through it. Feeling around, I found a cinder block wedged against the door. Behind me something heavy crashed from the second story to the ground. With my arm twisted through the opening I threaded it through the cylinder block and pulled it to me as best I could. My arm was hurting and smoke was starting to pour out from behind me, making it hard to
see. Rain had started falling outside and I saw that as my only hope if I didn’t get this block moved. It was caught on something in the yard and I couldn’t tell what it was.

  I remember I yelled, “Fuck!” as loud as I could and pulled with everything I had. The block moved to the side and with my other hand I punched the door open. When I crawled out, I didn’t look back. I just kept crawling till I was at the back of the yard against the fence. The rain was coming down hard now and hopefully it would put out that fire. There would be no fire department to save it, so if the rain didn’t stop it, there was a chance it would take the house next to it and the one after that, and a few more. But right now, I didn’t really care about any of that, I was just happy I was out from under the damned thing.

  Remembering the conversation between the muffled voice and the leader of the black truck gang, I knew that she escaped them and was now waiting for me at our meeting place. I could only hope that since they lost her, she was now sitting there waiting for me.

  I had about a mile and a half to go till I made it to the spot, a basement in a house near the Mount Holly Cemetery. We had some food, clothes, and blankets stashed there for emergencies. All I could do was get there and wait.

  I stuck to the plan and weaved my way through the streets and alleys, trying my best not to be seen by anyone. I was shivering more than ever now and just wanted to jump into a fire to feel some form of heat. Even blowing into my hands yielded little feeling. I thought about hot-wiring a nearby truck, but I didn’t have any tools. I thought about pulling out my hammer and busting the window and sleeping; I really wanted to sleep. The rain came down harder, as if saying you need to keep going, so I pressed on.

  When I got to the north safe place, the lock was still in place on the old root cellar door. Its bright yellow color made it easy to find in the beating rain. There were plenty of shelves for stored goods down there, although they were mostly empty. We’d stashed some blankets, food, and clothing down there a while back, and thanks to whoever was the owner at one time, there was a deep sink someone probably used for canning. I grabbed one of the old folding army cots we found here from our first trip and with a blanket I lay down and waited.

  I woke up in total darkness, coughing, and panicked. It took me a moment to realize where I was and that I wasn’t under the burning house. I had to wave my arm above my head just to make certain I wasn’t under the house, and with that assurance I tried to take mental inventory. I was coughing, freezing, burning up and sweating, my hands hurt, my feet hurt, along with my side, my head was throbbing, and I smelled so bad I offended myself. I threw up again. My self-inventory didn’t get much farther than that for a long time. I finally did make my way to the storm cellar doors that led to the outside of the basement. It was still night, so I must not have been out that long. However, I did feel a little better and I did feel a little rested. The rain had stopped and given way to a hazy night. The streetlights all had haloes around them. Nothing was visible farther from the lights other than a murky wall of mist.

  I had no idea how much time had passed, but since it was still dark I decided to give her more time and lie back down.

  I woke to the sound of thunder. My skin felt like it had a crust on it and I could taste the salt I’d sweated on the upper lip of my beard. I cupped my hands under the sink’s faucet and drank a gallon of water, then went to the steps of the cellar. The sky didn’t look right. It was lighter, still hazy, and I couldn’t see very far in any direction. But the sky was getting darker. Not because of clouds, but the light was going away. I decided I’d been here too long.

  Logically, we’d decided that if neither of us could make it to the decided safe place, we’d try to get to one of the other safe places instead. I’d go look for her at those. If one of us wasn’t at one of those, then we also agreed that something must have happened and the other of us was probably dead and we needed to just move on and do what we needed to do to survive. Logically that was the correct thing to do. Logic be damned. I’d loved that woman for years and I was either going to find her or kill whatever killed her. And if I did find her safe, I was probably going to kill her for making me worry like this.

  I started first to go to the Safeway and gather weapons. I’d decided to take a pistol from the duffel bags when I got there, and probably a rifle or a shotgun. I’d need something to replace Harold; I’d lost it while I was running away from the black truck. I was determined to become a one-man army. I think in my mind I was just going to find the black truck and kill them all, no chance, no mercy, just kill them. As I marched through the snow and fog that covered the ground, my breathing became labored and I started sweating again. I remember squinting my eyes shut and stepping forward one slow step at a time. That’s all I remember before the ground came up and slapped me in the face.

  ZWD: King of an Empty City Chapter 26

  ZWD: Dec. 21.

  I woke up in a warm bed with a ton of blankets covering me. The smell of patchouli filled the room. I was no longer freezing, but my body ached.

  Her hand reached out and wiped my forehead with a wet towel. In her other hand she held a pistol with her finger on the trigger. “Shhhh,” she whispered to me, “You need to rest. Go back to sleep.”

  “What’s the gun for?” I asked.

  “In case you turn.”

  “Was I bitten?”

  “No, no, no,” she assured me. “It’s just a precaution.”

  “Where were you? I was so worried.”

  “I’m fine. Sleep now, I’ll tell you later,” she cooed as I drifted off to sleep with the comforting thoughts that the love of my life was there to take care of me, or blow my brains out should I turn. The rest of my time in bed was much like that. I kept drifting in and out of sleep. I was burning up with fever and not really aware of the world around me. I kept catching snippets of conversation, but my mind wasn’t up for making sense of them.

  “Commander, can I talk to you a moment?” Eddie’s voice said as a figure was silhouetted in the doorframe of the room. “How’s he doing?” he asked, glancing at me. I tried to offer a smile, but he just looked even more worried.

  From somewhere in the room I heard her ask, “What’s up?”

  “I don’t know if I can be president if he . . .” and his voice trailed off. His head motioned to me.

  “You can do this, and you will do this, because it’s necessary. Those people need a leader and now you’re it. I don’t have to tell—” I never heard the rest of that sentence. I drifted off into a fitful sleep once more.

  “We’ve come up with some ideas we want to run by you on ways to cover our smell when we take Paris Towers, do you have a few minutes?” Donny’s voice asked somewhere in the room. I grunted and tried to sit up but a gentle hand came down on my shoulder and held me in place. Again I drifted to sleep.

  She stood there with Eddie, Donny, and Steve. Her face looked worried and I smiled at her to give her reassurance. She gave me a smile back and I felt better. She turned to Steve and said, “Only if you’re sure. I mean, he has to be turned, only then.” And she handed him the gun.

  “I wasn’t bitten, was I?” I asked again.

  “No, sweetie. It’s just a precaution,” she said, turning to me. Then she turned to Steve and gave him a stern look. She placed the gun in his open palm. “Only if he turns.” Then she, Donny, and Eddie walked out of the room. Steve walked over to a chair and sat down. I started to ask a question, but drifted back off.

  Through the open door, I could see shadows moving on the wall and voices talking low. “It’s confirmed,” Joseph’s voice spoke quietly. “Several of the kids are missing. There are tire marks in the snow where they were last seen.”

  “Crap!” she answered him. “Do you think they’ll torture them?” I tried my best to get out of bed, but couldn’t move. I managed to get one arm out from under the covers and I don’t remember anything else.

  “Jr., go get the Commander and Ashley now, he’s on fire!” sho
uted Bobby as she placed a hand on my cheek. Moments later, several people were around me, hands were touching me.

  Someone said, “He needs to be cooled off fast!”

  “Get him outside we can roll him in the snow.”

  “That’s how he got this way in the first place.”

  “The shower, get him to the shower! Cold water” I was dumped unceremoniously into a bathtub and the cold spray of water poured down over me. I didn’t feel it. I felt like I was in a sauna, in the desert, during a fire from hell. Someone came in and dumped snow on top of me and I felt better. Then they started dumping a lot of snow on me.

  I woke up back in bed. She moved over to my side and placed a hand on my forehead. Smiling, she said, “You had us scared there for a minute.” Then she kissed my forehead.

  “What, no gun?” I asked.

  She gave me a friendly slap on the top of my head. “We need to get some food into you, I’ll be right back.” She left the room and I finally sat up. A little later, I was brought a hot bowl of soup. It was more like ketchup poured into a bowl with boiled potatoes dumped in and something that looked like mustard mixed in for spice. It was fantastic. I had some stale saltines with it and felt my strength coming back. I ate in silence and she looked over some notes she’d made on a legal pad. There was only one lamp on in the room and it made a small pool of light in the dark room. We were in a house somewhere and I asked where we were.

  “We’re in a house not far from the governor’s mansion, not far from where they found you. All the kids are now either here or in the two houses next to it. We didn’t want to move you with your fever. So what happened to you? When they found you, you were face down in the snow almost dead.”

  I relayed the story of being trapped under the house and the fire. I told her how I went to the safe house and waited, then went looking and how the fever just kept getting worse. Then I asked her what had happened to her.