by Kuhn, Steve
Lilly sniffed and, nodding her understanding, shocked us all by saying, “They were monsters, huh, Mister Cutty?”
Cutty nodded solemnly and said, “Yeah, baby girl. They was. They asleep now, and they ain’t gonna be like dat no mo’.”
Lilly asked, “Are they going to sleep for a long time?”
Cutty told her, “They don’t wake up no mo’, baby girl. They gon’ sleep nice and peaceful fo’eva and eva now. But you know what?”
Lilly looked up at him hopefully and asked, “What?”
Cutty continued, “They spirits in heaven now, and they gon’ be watchin’ ova all of us.”
Lilly gave it some thought and said, “So, they’re okay, but I just can’t see them anymore?”
Cutty nodded and said, “’Fraid so, baby girl.”
Kylee added, “So, you and Dana are gonna be staying with us now. Is that all right?”
With a sad little face, she thought about it for a moment and answered with, “I need my blanket.”
Dana told us, “It’s in her closet. She had it when you found us.”
Without a word, JC sprinted off and returned in moments with a little pink and purple-striped blanket. He passed it to Lilly, and she immediately wrapped her dinosaur up in it like a baby. She laid it down on one of the bedrolls in the trailer and asked us all, “Can we go now? I’m hungry.”
We’re gonna eat while we move. We’ve lost nearly two days because of this, and that puts Kilo nearly out of reach. If we get held up with anything else, we may as well kiss that plan good-bye.
Entry 90
I needed to know. It was beginning to devour me on the inside just as much as the dead wanted to devour me on the outside, so I took the first opportunity that presented itself.
We were sitting in the cab of D-Prime, just chatting idly, while Fool was takin’ a leak. Murphy was on the buddy system with him since they were in the jeep and the others were in the trailer. Kylee absolutely refuses to drive D-Prime since the accident when we lost Bizzy and Tom, leaving Cutty and Murphy to switch off as needed.
I just sort of blurted out, “What were you thinking about that whole time?”
She frowned at the question and told me, “Everything. I haven’t had time to think since this entire thing started. I lost Don, and nearly a week after his funeral, I was up on a roof shooting dead people, Dext. We lost the rescue station; we lost Hope, the Haven…”
She got tears in her eyes and looked away from me.
I tried to lighten the mood with, “Did you hear that I beat the shit outta JC?”
She chuckled through her crying and said, “I was sick and lying there, wondering if I was going to… turn. But I smiled. You never saw it. I was proud of you that day.”
I gave her a grin and puffed my chest out a bit. I told her, “I shoulda flexed on him like Cutty.”
She smiled and called me an idiot, but her smile faded, and she said to me, “Wyatt.”
That name—Wyatt. It brings everything to a crashing halt. The entire mood of any room shifts when Wyatt’s name is uttered. An instant, insurmountable moment of silence comes behind that name. Cutty mentioned him the other day and even Dana, having never known him, was unable to speak in the moments that followed.
“I thought about Wyatt a lot… and the baby. If I had known I could have had a baby, I would’ve been more careful, Dext, and that’s what really hurts. I just didn’t know. I thought about what Don and I could’ve had. It was like a dream—a good dream, actually. I didn’t want to wake up to this nightmare again because in my mind, I was happy.”
That made sense to me, I guess. I wouldn’t want to come back to this world either. This begged the question, “Why did you come back, then?”
She answered me with, “Sitting in the back of that trailer, listening to you guys fighting for us outside, made me realize what I had here. We still have a chance to make something of this. Fuck Kilo and chasing them around and all that shit, Dext. I’m talking about this group, our group. We can still make this happen. And I was no good to you in la-la land. I came back because Wyatt gave me a chance.”
I nodded to her, and we sat in silence for a few more moments, but it was short-lived.
Boom!
The all too familiar sound of a gunshot rang out from somewhere behind us, followed by the screams of Dana and Rebecca. Somewhere in that mess of noise, Kylee and I heard Lilly cry out.
We bailed out of the truck fast as hell and ran to the rear, throwing open the doors. A smoking gun was at Lilly’s feet as Dana checked her over to make sure she was all right.
Cutty, having been clearly roused from a nap, rushed to Dana and Lilly and asked, “Wha’ happened, y’all. She okay? Baby girl, you okay?”
Dana sighed, greatly relieved, and said, “Yeah. She looks fine.”
Turning her attention to Lilly, Dana hugged her and then asked her firmly, “What were you doing, Lilly?”
She just sniffled and didn’t reply until Dana snapped, “Answer me, miss!”
Lilly told her, “Practicing to kill monsters. I didn’t know it was going to be so loud.”
Kylee hopped into the trailer and asked Dana, “Can I try?”
Dana backed up, but not too much as the sunshine beamed through the newest hole in the side of the trailer.
Kneeling to make eye contact with Lilly, Kylee told her, “Sweetheart, guns are very dangerous, and you could have been hurt very badly. I don’t you want even touching one of them until you’re a big girl and I can teach you how to use one properly and safely.”
Lilly stomped her feet and snapped, “I am a big girl! Dana says I’m a big girl all the time, and I go potty by myself and everything!”
Dana took the reins and told Lilly, “You do not touch any guns until I say you’re allowed. Are we clear?”
Lilly frowned, displeased, and offered a shy, “Yes, Dana.”
From the relative darkness in the front of the trailer, JC’s voice could be heard chiming in, “She is going to have to learn. You know that, right, Dana? Matter of fact, I think it’s better she learns about them sooner rather than later. Curiosity is only going to make it worse. We can teach her. Hell, Fool’s a pro. He straightened Dext right out.”
Dana waved him off and said, “We’ll talk about this later when she’s not right in front of us.”
Right about then, Murphy came running to us from the wooded area with Fart right on his heels. He was a bloody mess, so I slammed the door to make sure Lilly wouldn’t see him.
Panting and upset, he asked me, “What the fuck happened, Sally?”
I told him the short version, that Lilly was caught playing with a gun and it went off. I told him she was fine and then asked him the same question, “What the fuck happened to you?”
That was when he told me Fool was dead. “Christ, Sally. It came outta nowhere. The kid was takin’ a piss, and I was watchin’ his back for him like we do every day. He never felt a thing, though.”
Obviously the news was shocking enough on its own, but my first thought was, How do you not feel a thing?
Murphy went on and answered that for me, saying, “The bullet went right through the back of his neck at his spine—severed his brain stem instantly. Poor kid landed facedown in his own piss.”
That moment… that sinking moment when your stomach drops into your shoes—yeah, that was the moment when I found out that a five-year-old girl just accidentally shot and killed Fool.
We agreed to never speak of the manner in which Fool died in the presence of Lilly. We simply told Lilly that Mr. Fool decided to go and find his own way without us. Luckily, she didn’t have much time to get attached, and it was shrugged off as she colored in her book.
We didn’t have the proper military gear on hand, but we made the best of what we had. After burying him, we stuck his rifle in the soft dirt. Then, we sat his boots with it and topped it with a civilian baseball cap, an old New York Yankees hat. Kylee hung his dog tags at the end of our makeshif
t memorial.
Rest in peace, Giacomo Fulci. You got off easy.
Entry 91
Another sign—another plywood marker from Kilo: ‘NO MORE TRAINS. GO SOUTHWEST TO ALBUQUERQUE!!!’
Kansas is flat as fuck, by the way. It’s like you can see for miles and miles with no end but the horizon. At some point in the very recent past, I would assume there was corn or some shit to block the view, but not anymore. It’s just a dustbowl, desolate and depressing.
Gettin’ colder everyday as well. I hate being cold. Don’t get me wrong, though. Winter is still well off. Still, we don’t have the fuel or the battery power to run heaters, so when winter does come, we’ll have to make a pretty serious lifestyle change—if we make it that far, that is.
Tensions are increasing with JC again, and his latest stunt really didn’t help us any. The guy just doesn’t think. If he does think, it’s certainly not the way most of us do. I guess he’s pissed off about Fool and Lilly. I know that he liked Fool a lot, and I can’t discount how many times they saved our asses, even if the two of them sometimes put us in danger. The former far outweighed the latter, no doubt. They were a good team.
I want to give him the benefit of the doubt, because it seems like JC lost the first friend he’s had in a while… maybe ever, hehe. I don’t really know what to say about it.
I’m glad I wasn’t the one who got shot? Sounds fucked up, right? But it’s true. I’ve seen so much death now that I find myself thinking, Better you than me, pal! Sorry about your luck.
It’s not always like that. Obviously, some of the others hurt me a lot, but even still, I think, At least I’m still pluggin’ along. At least I’m not dead yet.
There’s a fine line I’m talkin’ about here. Let’s say Lilly accidentally shot and killed herself and not Fool. I know for a fact I wouldn’t feel the ‘better her than me’ mentality. I would be seriously fucked up over it.
Here’s something I haven’t told anyone since the accident. Lilly had my gun. No one bothered to ask whose it was or whatever, but that shit’s on my mind. After Murphy teased me about having two guns, I stashed the spare under the bedroll. I never thought for once that Lilly would find it, much less play with it. Frankly, what are we supposed to do? Unload our guns and start putting trigger locks and safeties on all the time? This is a fucking war zone we live in. But still, my gun killed Fool and could have just as easily ended that little girl’s life. So, we’re left with some questions…
Do we train her to deal with this new world? Protect her from seeing the true horrors of this new world? A combination of both?
Haha… fuck you! I’d bet my last bullet that you’re thinkin’ something like, Clearly a combination of the two.
Easy to say, harder to do, because as soon as you agree on a ’combination’ theory, then you have to start making little micro-decisions for each and every situation. That becomes impossible when the shit hits the fan, friend. I promise you that.
Take today for example:
The fucktards are spread out pretty good here in the Midwest as far as we can tell. That’s one definite positive of all this open space. You can likely see a group of them coming for miles. Of course, the living can see you coming for miles, too. Let’s hope that doesn’t bite us in the ass; no pun intended.
We stopped at this sign from Kilo to stretch and check Murphy’s map. He found a really nice one in the glove box of D-Prime a while back, and we’ve been glued to it ever since. Cutty and Rebecca chatted idly while Murphy and I planned our route based on the newest info. Lilly was happy to be out of the trailer and played on the side of the road near this parched field as Dana took a much-needed nap.
Dana busts her ass keeping Lilly sorted out. It’s really becoming obvious that Dana is everything Lilly has right now, and for a young woman, Dana does very well with her. I mean, Dana still gets on everyone’s nerves with her bitching and moaning about everything, but credit where credit is due, right?
But JC, that crazy fucker… He tells us he’s gonna take Lilly for a short walk and asks to borrow Murphy’s bow and quiver in case there’s trouble. Naturally, Murphy obliged, and we told them not to go too far. It’s actually nice to have the space and relative safety of visibility. It feels a little more… free. We wanted Lilly to enjoy that for as long as we had it.
Enter Dana, a short ten minutes later, in a complete state of panic, frantically asking us, “Lilly? Oh my God, where’s Lilly? I was only asleep for a little while, right? You guys have Lilly?”
Murphy told her, “She’s good. You needed the rest. She’s with JC over yonder.”
In typical Dana fashion, she snapped, “JC? You have got to be kidding me! She’s with that psychopath?”
Now, I wanted to inform her that at this point we were all pretty psychopathic to a degree, but to be honest with you, I didn’t feel like hearing her fuckin’ mouth anymore. Her little richy-ass, cheerleader-ish tone eats away at my soul. So, I let it go.
Next thing I know, I heard Dana shout, “Get away from her! You get away from her right now!”
Everyone dropped what they were doing and ran a little further into the field to find her confronting JC and snatching Lilly away from him. Cutty stomped his foot and said, “Aw c’mon, JC. You serious wit dis shit, man?”
Rebecca stifled a gag as Kylee pushed her way past to get a look. She scowled at him and moved to block Lilly’s line of sight. Murphy did the same as he relieved JC of the bow and quiver.
JC held out his arms innocently and asked, “What? What I do? I was just showing her how it works.”
Dana pushed Lilly gently in the direction of the road and whispered over her shoulder at JC, “You fucking asshole!”
I looked down to see a single, sun-baked biter laid out in the dry field. Its skin was almost leathery, and its lips and eyelids had all but dried and flaked away. Yet, it still hissed at us, gnashing its rotting teeth. JC had crucified it, sprawled out on the ground with Murphy’s arrows jabbed through its withering hands and feet. He had clearly been poking at it in various and previously vital spots, as evidenced by holes over its heart and midsection. They now oozed and festered in the midday sun.
JC defended himself, saying, “I was just showing her how they don’t feel pain, and then I was going to show her how to take one out for good. She needs to know this stuff!”
Cutty stared at the biter, disgusted at the site, and shot back, “JC, man… look at this shit, homie. She five years old. I’da had nightmares fo’ da rest o’ my life if I’da seen dis shit at dat age.”
JC shook his head and said, “That’s what you’re missin’, Cutty. She’s already seen this over and over—just not up close enough to understand. We can take away her fear if we can replace it with understanding. She wasn’t even that scared, anyway. She was listening quietly until Polly Prissy Pants came over here makin’ a fuckin’ scene.”
Rebecca sarcastically added, “You mean, this scene?” She gestured to the crucifixion. “Yeah, Dana’s fault, I’m sure.”
JC knew he was outnumbered. He threw his hands up and stalked off, saying, “Don’t say I didn’t try and help.”
We circled the weakly struggling corpse and just stared for a moment. I didn’t really know what the others were thinkin’, but I just felt sorry for it. It was feeble. It was trapped—a lot like us, in that sense… just struggling to keep doing whatever the force inside it pushed it to do. The will to ‘keep going’ was still strong, regardless of the futility of its situation, just like us.
We left it to rot.
Entry 92
I thought taking care of a baby in this environment would be nearly impossible—the craziness of night-time feedings or changing shitty diapers (or old rags, in our case) or the crying… It just sounded insane.
Let me tell you something. That shit would be a blessing compared to keeping a five-year-old occupied. Lilly has been bouncing off the fucking walls all day long, and I’m about out of patience.
Remember t
he whole ‘Are we there yet?’ shit from when you were a kid? Yeah, well, for us there’s no end in sight, but I’ll be damned if she doesn’t constantly ask us. She’s ridden in the cab a few times to get her out of the trailer a bit, and we’ve even pawned her off on Kylee and Cutty in the jeep more than a few times. Mostly, we’ve been trading off during the piss breaks, which happen every ten minutes it seems. I swear the little girl doesn’t even drink as much water as she pisses out.
Matter of fact, in a stroke of genius, Murphy just decided to cut a hole in the floor at the rear of the trailer so we didn’t have to stop for as many breaks. He even rigged a hanging blanket for some privacy. Cutty still has to shit outside, though. That decision was unanimous.
Oh! And remember ‘I Spy’? The game where you spot something and the others have to figure out what it is. Guess what? There isn’t a single fucking thing worth spying in Kansas, so that game sucks; although, it was pretty fun to throw rocks at the dumbshits on the side of the road. We loaded up on a break and let Lilly throw them out the window as we passed—until Dana told us to knock it off, that is.
On the other hand, during the seventeenth piss break before lunch today, we did the Hokey Pokey. That shit was pretty funny. Rebecca clearly has more rhythm in her pinky finger than all of us combined. And Cutty… Well… for a black dude, Cutty can’t dance for shit!
But we all laughed.
That’s one thing about Lilly that we didn’t remember to do when she wasn’t with us. We have to play. We have to have some fun and enjoy the life that we have—more now than ever, in fact, because it can be snuffed out in an instant. What good is living a life without laughter?
I guess I’m learning that the cool thing about a kid like Lilly is that she can drive you bonkers, but even as you think back about it, you giggle. She’s just so precious, pure, and innocent in a world full of the opposite. This world is ugly and tainted, and the people still left in it are just as disgusting, myself included.
I want us to be able to let her keep that for as long as possible. JC clearly disagrees, but I think Dana gets it. Lilly shouldn’t have to grow up so fast. She shouldn’t have to sacrifice her childhood. I’m constantly reminded of that after Wyatt’s letter to Hope. He missed playing. He missed being a kid.