The Loving Dead

by Amelia Beamer

  Kate looked at him. She’d nearly gotten him killed, several times. Maybe he was counting from the other direction. “I have personally killed,” she stopped to count. “Two zombies. And subdued two more, by tying them up. You don’t have to kill them.”

  “Two by two, we go to the Lord,” Rob said. He laughed. “Baby, we should talk, just the two of us. Maybe you guys could go check out the island?”

  Ray and Will looked at one another. Kate looked at each of them, willing them to say no.

  “G’wan. I won’t bite her.” He laughed at his joke. Then he grew serious. “If there are other people who think like us, or like them, this place will be full by dawn. Probably full of unprepared people with,” he dug into Kate’s bag. “Handwarmers? You think that’s what you needed?” He tossed the package onto the carpet. It did seem rather useless, now.

  “We didn’t have long to pack—” she said.

  Rob talked over her. “Nevermind the resources. People can be cold and hungry and live just fine. What I’m worried about is having a refugee camp full of potential zombies. We don’t know who will have been bitten, and how long it’ll take for them to turn. I need to know what you know. I need to pick your brains.”

  “You have a prison,” Kate said. “Even I can operate the doors on the cells. A ranger showed me, last time I was here. Three levers. You know. State of the art in 1933.”

  “1934,” Will said.

  “Whatever. So if you’re serious about this, you lock people up in cells, and let them out after a couple of days, if they haven’t turned into zombies. If they do turn, they’re locked up. Nothing can happen.”

  “That means we’ll have to lock you two up,” Rob said. He looked boyish when he smiled.

  “Go for it,” Kate said. That would solve everything. “Seriously. You have no reason to trust anyone. Not us, not even each other.”

  The guys looked at one another. “We’ve been here all day.”

  “OK.” Kate shrugged. It was better not to argue too much. “You don’t know you’re not infected. But still, let us prove that we’re safe.”

  Rob stood. “You guys go outside. Bring anyone you find to the main prison and lock them up. Standard cells; don’t use the isolation ones. I want to be able to see them.”

  “All right. Let’s go.” She shoved her things into her backpack, then stood.

  “I need to talk to you first,” Rob said. He put a hand on her shoulder.

  She made a noise from the pain. “Sorry, muscle spasm. My whole back’s on fire.” She sat. That was what he wanted her to do.

  “Well, that sucks.” He turned to the guys. “Bring the kid with you. He can tell you what he knows, and she can tell me what she knows.”

  Trevin squeezed Kate’s hand. “You’ll be fine,” she whispered to him. She let go. Their footsteps echoed as they left. She wished she were going with them. Rob was a little creepy. Still, she let them leave.

  When they were alone, Rob sat back, cross-legged, leaning on his hands. “Tell me everything,” he said. “Want some water?”

  She accepted a bottle. “Well,” she said. “Last night, my friends started turning into them.” She told him mostly everything, the way she’d told her parents, skirting around the sex. He was a good listener, asking questions and making sympathetic faces. She grew calmer, sitting with him. She’d much rather have been trying to find Michael, but maybe she was better off staying in one place, so that he could find her.

  Rob took her hand. Ran his fingers over the top of it. It felt nice.

  She pulled her hand away. “I have a boyfriend,” she said.

  “I have a girlfriend,” Rob said. They don’t need to know.” He grabbed her hand again. He brought it to his mouth and kissed her fingertips. “I want you,” he said. “I like you.”

  She shook her head. “No,” she said. “Let’s go down to the prison floor. Put me in a cell. If I’m still cool in a few days, we can try this again.” She stood.

  Rob stood. “Honey, we can do this the easy way. You’ll like it, I promise. Sit down, relax. Where were we?”

  She was afraid of him then. Angry with herself for ignoring the signals. “I should go find Trevin. We can set up camp elsewhere. Leave you guys the gift shop. Hell, the whole main building. It’s cool.”

  “Honey, don’t play like that. You like me, I know you do. You wanted them to leave as much as I did.”

  “I’m on my period,” she lied. “I have HIV.”

  He shook his head, smiling. “No, you don’t.” He pulled her to the floor. Her back sang out in pain. They sat among the displays of books and souvenir mugs. “I’m sorry I’m scaring you off. I don’t mean to. Give me two minutes. I have a proposition,” he said. “Seriously. There’s going to be lots of big dudes here soon. You said as much; people will come here. People who understand about surviving at all costs. We’ll protect you. Your brother, too. You’ll be safe with us, I promise. I’ve seen so many movies about the apocalypse. Read every book I could get my hands on. I know how it works. I can handle it.”

  “I gotta go,” she said.

  He wouldn’t let go of her hand. “Wait,” he said. “I didn’t want to do it this way; I’m not this kind of guy, but—” He uncovered a shotgun from the mess on the floor. “Up close, this’ll blow your mind. Even your brother wouldn’t recognize you. How about you take off those wet pants? Get warm? I swear I’m a good guy.”

  Kate froze. She was too scared to cry.

  “Don’t run,” he said in a voice as gentle as Mister Rogers. “Don’t make me do something we’ll both regret. I know how the apocalypse works. I’ve read Max Brooks. You need a dude to take care of you when people resort to cannibalism. You’ll like me, I swear. We just have to get to know one another a little bit.”

  She shook her head. Pain flared up through her shoulder and her neck. She should never have come here. It would have been better to be eaten by a zombie when she had the chance. Trevin was outside with the goons. He may as well be a hostage. Michael probably never made it to the island.

  “OK, then,” Rob said. “We’ll be good for one another. I need you. I need you alive.” He took her hand again, kissed it.

  Was this what happened when society fell apart? She’d heard about the so-called paper-thin veneer of civilization. This guy was full of his own power, living his favorite movies and books. Convinced that the apocalypse was here, and all bets were off. But bad shit happened in books; it was why you kept reading. You’d get all attached to a character, and then they’d die. Maybe she’d turn into a zombie soon: maybe her pheromones were driving him mad. It made sense, if sexual transmission was really a vector. It was in the interest of the bug to get around. He probably didn’t act like this with girls normally. It didn’t excuse his behavior.

  Maybe the gun wasn’t loaded. Clint Eastwood’s voice in her mind: “You feeling lucky, punk?”

  He went around to sit in front of her. His breath smelled of mint gum.

  “Not that,” she said, turning her face away. “I swear, no. This thing is transmitted by saliva. I’ve got it.”

  His hand fisted up. He would hit her, she knew. Knock out a tooth. That was the difference between a high-price hooker and a common whore, back in the day. High-priced girls had all their teeth. So did zombies, somehow. In the movies, you never saw a zombie with missing teeth, or dentures.

  She watched her hands undoing her jeans. It was as if they were someone else’s. She’d forgotten to get a belt. Yet another failure, but one that didn’t matter anymore. Nothing mattered. The bug inside her was going to get out. She pulled her wet jeans down. She was naked underneath. Pale and frightened. She rolled over, ass in the air, facing away from him to keep him from kissing her. Crying now. Waiting for it to be over. As long as he didn’t go down on her, he might be safe. Maybe.

  “You need a condom,” she said. But why did she care? She rather wanted to doom him. They’d both be zombies then, walking around and eating people. He probably did
n’t have the balls to shoot her anyway. But she was afraid for Trevin.

  She heard him unzip. He sighed as he entered her. He pumped. It hurt. There had been no telltale rip from a condom wrapper. She grew wet. She’d read an article once about women’s sexuality that said that women were turned on by all sorts of things. Researchers measured women’s physical response by sticking some tool inside them, then showing them pictures. The women didn’t report being turned on by the images they were shown. Yet they were wet. That made sense to her now. Throughout primate history, females were raped. There would be damage, without lubrication.

  Rob gripped Kate’s sides. “Yes, baby, yes,” he was saying. She rocked back against him, wanting him to come. Her back ached. She tried to pretend that this was OK. That she wanted it. If she waited until after he came, he’d be defenseless.

  Rob slowed down. “Can’t spurt too fast,” he said. “Takes all the fun out of it.”

  “Fuck,” Kate said. “Give it to me hard. You know you want it.” Her shoulder and back were on fire. Tears fell onto the carpet. She wanted it over. “Come on, baby.”

  He sped up, then gasped. His fingers dug into her. When he let go, she moved away. She pulled up her jeans. He was kneeling on the floor, tucking his junk into his pants.

  “Baby, this is the start of something beautiful,” he said, smiling. “I knew you’d come around. So to speak. You like a little power play, yeah?”

  She hit him. Her shoulder flared with pain. He fell back, startled. She kicked him in the ribs. He let out a pained breath, and grabbed for her feet. She kicked him again, as hard as she could.

  “Fuck,” he said. He got a hand around her ankle.

  “Yeah, fuck,” she said. She landed her other foot on his nose. She wanted to break it. If she was stupid enough to let this happen—if she’d already murdered two people and brought an innocent kid to a dangerous place—this was nothing. There was no escaping. And it felt good. If the apocalypse was an excuse for rape, it was certainly an excuse for murder. She brought her foot down. He screamed. His face was a satisfying mess. She kicked him in the side of the head. It snapped to one side. She did it again, until he lay still, eyes closed. She stopped. He was still breathing. She couldn’t bring herself to kill him. She heard a voice, her voice, echoing through the empty gift shop. “Who needs a chiropractor now, motherfucker?”

  She dragged his body back through the prison. He was heavy, and she had to do it with one hand because of her wrecked shoulder. It was easier once she got past the carpet and into the cell block. Rob left a smeary trail of blood. She put him on the floor in an open cell, and went to the box at the end of the row. One lever was kind of like the clutch. Another you used to pick which cells. The third lever kachunked the doors open or closed. She shut the door. Rob moaned. He was still alive. She rather wished she’d killed him, and then thought of the agony he’d have in store. Turning into a zombie, his hands reaching through the bars. Wanting, agonizing, over what he wouldn’t have. That was its own revenge. As long as he stayed in the cell.

  Kate went and found a bathroom. She was sore. She washed as best she could. Goop was dripping from inside her. Her shoulder and back were a solid knot.

  The adrenalin ebbed. She went back to the gift shop. She used the phone behind the cash registers to call her cell phone, hoping that Trevin would answer. It went straight to voicemail. Her own voice saying, “Alas, you’ve missed me. You know what to do.” She hung up. She knew what to do. First she called Michael. She didn’t bother leaving a message. If he survived, and she didn’t, it would only make him sad to have a message from her.

  She took the rope from her backpack, leaving the rest of her gear, and went to an empty prison cell. One with a mattress. It smelled of dust. The room was tiny, three paces by two. A bed, a sink, a toilet full of concrete. You could go crazy in here.

  She tied one wrist to the bed frame, using the knot Jamie had shown her. She drew it tight. Pity you couldn’t close the cells from inside. Everyone was at risk because of her. She didn’t care if she might be in danger. Nothing bad could happen. Nothing worse than what had already happened. She would protect all of the people who’d come to the island to be safe.

  She lay down to wait.

  chapter sixteen

  Michael tied up the paddleboat. He scrambled onto the dock. “Pass me the box?”

  Jordan handed it over. “See? I got us here,” he said.

  “Yeah, just barely, dickwipe,” Michael said. The three of them were soaked through with rain and ocean. He might have had a better time swimming to the island. They’d barely found the dock.

  “Be cool,” Gracie said. Her teeth chattered. “Now we’re here. Now what?”

  “Let’s find somewhere dry,” Michael said. “Somewhere inside.”

  “You know for sure that there aren’t any zombies here?” Gracie said.

  “This is the most defensible place in the bay,” he said. He knew he wasn’t answering the question.

  They walked uphill. He mostly remembered the layout of the island. “How about one of those guard towers? We could climb up. See everything from there.”

  “What, that?” Gracie pointed. “It’s barely got a roof. That does not count as inside.”

  “OK, fine. The main building, then.”

  “That’s the first place anyone will go,” Jordan said. “Plus it’s creepy.”

  “You don’t want to meet anyone? I tell you, we’re not going to survive if we don’t talk with people. We’re going to want shelter.”

  “Yeah, but who knows who’s here? That rowboat on the dock? Someone is here. You think they’re retail slaves like us?”

  Michael didn’t answer. They walked past a sign that said United States Penitentiary in black print. Above it was handwritten in red ink, “Indians Welcome.” They walked past the officers’ club, which had burned down during the Indian occupation. Only walls remained, grown over with moss like some Celtic ruin. The fire had been an accident, depending on who you asked. There were several garage-like structures further in. The doors were padlocked closed.

  “We can break in,” Michael said.

  “Do you know how to pick a lock?” Jordan asked.

  “Don’t need to.” He went to a building, examined the padlock. The hasp was rusted. The only problem with breaking it was that it compromised the security of the door, which they’d care about later if they had to keep zombies out. He walked around the side of the building. The windows were dirty, and thin. The place wouldn’t be very secure, but they could always retreat to the main prison.

  “I’m guessing that the zombies aren’t going to make their way en masse out here anyway. We can handle them one at a time. Maybe we just get inside for a little while, warm up. Take stock of the island in the morning.” He wished he’d brought a hatchet, or a hammer. Any kind of tool would do. He took a bottle of scotch from his box, glad that he’d thought to get the kind in plastic.

  “Why don’t you use a rock?” Jordan said.

  “Find me one.” Michael started hammering at the hasp. It would give. It had to give.

  “Hey, what’s that?” A voice yelled.

  Someone else was here. They must have heard the noise. A guy stood outside of a building further uphill. Michael thought it was a guy, anyway. Gracie and Jordan backed up.

  Michael stepped forward. “Hey!” he called. “We’re just looking for a place to chill. I mean, to get warm. We have booze.”

  The guy went back to the doorway, and opened it. There was a light on inside. It looked warm. He went inside, then came back out. “You holding?”

  Michael thought about it. The Bay Area wasn’t rough on prosecuting, not for personal use, anyway. That would be the least of his worries. This wasn’t a cop. “Yeah,” he called.

  “Well, come on in, then.”

  Michael looked to Jordan and Gracie. “Shall we?”

  Gracie took a step forward.

  “I don’t know,” Jordan said.

/>   “We’ll be fine,” Michael said. “We were going to have to make some friends, anyway, sooner or later. Maybe they know where Kate is.” He picked up his box and walked. They followed. He knocked at the door.

  The guy opened the door. He wore a flannel shirt and had long black hair. His eyes were already squinty. The room reeked of pot. “I’m Gabe, come in.” Two women sat on the cement floor. They were eating out of cans with their fingers. Pasta, looked like, in the light from a camping lantern on the floor. “Ana and Trish,” he gestured. Gardening equipment lurked in the shadows. The three of them were probably in their late twenties, or early thirties.

  Michael introduced himself, and his friends. Gabe shut the door. “I thought we’d just smoked our last. That’s the one thing we should have brought a bunch more of. If only for making friends. Had to move fast; I only had my personal stash. Not enough by half.”

  There was nothing else to do. Michael surrendered his to Gabe. “Do the honors? Not much, but it’s classy stuff. Still in a bag, so it should be dry.”

  Gabe opened the bag and put it to his nose. He smiled. “Purple Haze. I know the guy who grows this stuff in Santa Cruz. I’d recognize it anywhere.”

  Michael nodded. It wasn’t Purple Haze, but there was no reason to correct him. “So you guys here by yourselves?”

  “Place is ours. No one in sight. Siddown,” Gabe said. “I’ll roll it.”

  Michael put down his box and sat on the floor. Gracie and Jordan followed. It was marginally warmer inside. Still, they were shivering. Michael wasn’t feeling great, himself. He handed the bottle of scotch to Jordan, who took a swig, and passed it to Gracie. She drank and passed to one of the girls.

  “Shouldn’t we save some?” one of the girls asked. She took a hit from the bottle. “What about tomorrow?”

  “You want to wake and bake? I’ll set aside a bit.” He looked to Michael. “I’m guessing that you guys are here for a while. You’re welcome to stay the night.”

  “Thanks, but I’m looking for someone. Her name’s Kate? Pretty girl, wearing a Hawaiian shirt?”