by Lowry, Chris
I could have killed the eight of them, but I knew that would piss the pastor off, and I didn't want to repay his kindness with pain.
We transferred the pikes to Jamal's car, a knapsack of soup, and locked the rest of the supplies in the trunk.
“Drive,” I told him and slid into the backseat, rifle across my lap and pointed at his back. The kid didn't fail to notice. Anna rode shotgun, hers aimed at him as well.
CHAPTER NINE
There should be rules to surviving the Zombie Armageddon, but no one wrote them down. Or maybe they did because I remember seeing a guide on how to survive one once, but it was a tongue in cheek joke, full of things like stock up on beer, as opposed to learning how to brew your own.
Beer could be good currency now, or a talent to bring to the table if one wanted to be a part of a community. Moonshine even better because not only could you cut the hootch with water to drink it, you could use it as fuel and fire starter. Knowing how to build a still was a valuable commodity.
Jamal drove like he was eighteen and couldn't be killed. Anna buckled up three miles in when he took a curve doing ninety and slid across the middle line. I wasn't worried about oncoming traffic so much as wrapping around a tree.
“Slow down,” I told him.
He glared at me and maybe thought about saying something back, but didn't and the speedometer crept down to sixty. We might live with that.
“Tell me about your group,” I said.
“There were thirty of us until a couple of days ago, then four of us had to leave,” Jamal gripped the wheel with easy confidence and kept his eyes on the road while he talked.
“All kids, like I said.”
“Where are the adults?”
“Who cares?” he shot back. “They're out there, but they're the ones that caused this mess. Who needs them?”
“You now?” Anna said.
Jamal shrugged.
“Maybe. But we didn't need them in the group. Byron's in charge. He's like a genius or something, and he figured it all out. What caused this, how to survive it, what we need to do. He found us, got us set up in a shelter at the school, plenty of food and we're safe.”
“Until you turn eighteen.”
“Yeah, well not all of us agree with that but Byron says a society has got to have rules, and his rule is once you turn eighteen, you're an adult and part of the problem, not the solution.”
“So he kicks you out?”
“Or kills you. He did that to a couple of guys who wouldn't leave when he laid out the rules.”
“Why not twenty-one?”
“Eighteen,” said Jamal.
As if that were answer enough.
I watched him as he drove the next few miles in silence, the easy confidence of youth present in everything he did, from the way he sat to how he handled the steering wheel. I remembered how he rested his hand on his pistol belt, ready to draw, and wished for just a moment I still had that.
Growing older you can get more confident, because you know no matter how much shit life shovels in your direction, you can handle it. The confidence of youth is that no shit will come your way, a granite block of optimism that slowly gets chipped away over time. I hoped Jamal would get the time to lose it, and then thought that was cynical. Maybe the kids were right.
Adults are the ones who cause almost all the problems in the world. Maybe Byron had it right. He sounded like a little dictator, but that didn't mean he was wrong.
“Why did Brian send you after me?” I asked after five miles more.
Jamal sighed and his shoulders shifted.
“He sent three of us after you.”
“I thought you said you met Hannah and Harriet in town.”
“I wasn't alone.”
Why did he leave that part out?
“The other two dudes that turned eighteen were with me.”
Brian let three strange men into his fort. I knew the guy was trusting but that bordered on the stupid. Even unarmed they could overpower him, and-
I caught myself before I went too far down that rabbit hole. I needed to know more. But I put my finger through the trigger guard.
“Why did Brian send three of you to find us?”
“Byron was going to send them out of our territory,” he said. “They were trespassing.”
Anna spoke up.
“You mean he's cleared out all the adults? How big is your territory?”
“I don't know about all of them,” Jamal shrugged. “But all the ones we've found so far. He gives them a choice. Leave or die.”
Simple. Effective.
“Most choose to leave.”
“Brian didn't.”
Jamal shook his head.
“Brian didn't. Byron's group showed up and Brian wouldn't leave.”
“He's alive though?” Anna looked worried. “All of them?”
“They burned us out. We all got away in the boats. Except for Hannah.”
“Byron kidnapped Hannah.”
“I don't know,” he said. “She might have chosen to go with them. Byron can be pretty persuasive.”
“How did he talk to her?”
“She was out there when he laid it all out for us to leave. Said I should have told them the law.”
I leaned back into the seat. We were making good time so it would be less than an hour before we got back to the small town where Brian had hoped to build his home. I marvelled for a moment at the power of speed.
Here I was afraid to drive faster than twenty-five to Arkansas, and riding in a car that had crept back up to seventy-five. I could make the trip to rescue the kids in a day doing that speed, but I was the one who cautioned going slow.
Why?
Was I afraid of finding answers? Finding out what really happened to them? Or worse not finding anything at all.
I closed my eyes and listened to the throaty grumble of the engine as it vibrated through the body of the car. I could smell Anna in front of me, the light scent of a perfume she must have found in the discount store wafting back on the air from the vent. I replayed the conversation with Jamal in my mind, turning it over for inconsistencies, looking for loopholes and lies.
Maybe pretending I would be able to tell if he was leading us into a trap. Pretending that I could see a tick, or a tell, but I had never been very good at playing poker.
I was more a head down push through the line kind of guy, and constantly praying I would learn from the mistakes of others as opposed to making them all on my own.
I hoped going back wasn't about to teach me another harsh lesson.
CHAPTER TEN
I made him pull off and stop three miles from the fort.
“We'll walk from here.”
“Walk?” he stuttered as if humans hadn't been doing that very thing from the beginning of time, and perhaps longer.
Anna opened her door and we both climbed out. I had picked the spot at random, instead of going to where Jamal had said we would meet. I even planned to scoot further out in the woods and come from a different direction as we got closer. It might be Brian waiting, but there was no sense in walking into an ambush if it wasn't.
“Lead on,” I told him.
Jamal strutted in front of us, walking on the edge of the asphalt roadway, eyes flicking around to the woods, the road ahead and back again. His head almost on a swivel.
Some folks have the instinct, or they go into the military and get the training. Head on a swivel means you're studying the surroundings, watching, searching for anything out of the ordinary. Maybe that’s why some people lived and some didn't. They were just more aware of their surroundings.
The kid wasn't too obvious about it, but I could see his shoulders tense up as we got closer to the place where he said we would meet.
“Hold up,” I said softly.
“It's just up here,” he pointed.
“I know.”
Anna turned toward me, shotgun still pointed in Jamal's direction, a subtle reminder.
> “What are you thinking?”
“Cut around,” I told her and she nodded.
“Which side?”
I checked both sides of the road, but in the Georgia backwoods they looked like carpet covered twin landscapes.
“There's an old bank building been abandoned for years on this side. He's waiting there.”
Old buildings littered the landscape. It would be easy enough to hole up in one for a couple of hours or even a couple of days to wait.
I struck off through the woods taking the lead. Anna pointed Jamal behind me and shifted the shotgun in her hands. I didn't think she had her head on a swivel though. It was probably locked in on Jamal's right hand. One twitch or grab for his pistol and I'd feel the warm wet stickiness of his head splatter across the back of mind.
At least that's what I hoped.
He might be fast enough to get off a shot. Or Anna might blow a hole through him and hit me too.
The building was where he said it was and we arrived with both of us whole. I stood next to a tree on the shadowed side and noticed Jamal and Anna do the same. The bank was a one room building, old brick from the fifties, built like a squat solid looking square that punched up out of a black paved parking lot. The pavement was cracked in places, the weeds and grass working hard to take it back, and probably going to win.
All the windows were busted out, but the interior was still bathed in darkness.
“Inside?”
Jamal shrugged.
“He said here. Didn't say which.”
The confidence was back, the shoulders relaxed. Maybe he had been worried about Z on the road. There's a certain protection that comes from a metal shell around you. Being out in the open makes you more vulnerable.
I studied the structure, but nothing moved inside. Nothing moved outside either, except for the play of shadows on the trees. It was impossible to see in the woods for more than a few yards.
“Go up and knock,” I said.
Jamal glanced at me with his eyebrows raised.
“You serious?”
“You don't have to knock, but walk up to the building.”
He smirked.
“You know if it was a trap, they wouldn't shoot me cause they would know who I was. They'd just wait for me to tell you it was alright and then get you when you came out.”
I nodded.
Damn, I hadn't thought that way. I was thinking that if it was an ambush, they would just start shooting and I could pick them off. But Jamal was right.
I took a step out from the trees. Nothing happened. I took another, this time into full sunshine.
If anyone was waiting they would be able to see me. No one took a shot, so I took a step and kept walking to the front of the bank.
There were four long concrete steps that led up to the gaping maw where two doors had once been. The sun slanted just enough to spread five or six feet of light through the doorway. I paused to look inside, but my eyesight like the sun couldn't penetrate too deep into the darkness.
I went inside and stepped to one side of the door. There were two reasons for this. First, I didn't want to give anyone inside a silhouette to shoot at, and second I could let my eyes adjust to the dimness inside.
Once they did I could see it was empty. There was a counter that ran along the back wall and an open vault with the door removed behind it. The rest of the room was void of everything but leaves, droppings and litter from kids who turned the place into a party hang out before the Z apocalypse. Old beer cans, condoms, and what looked like a single sock on the floor.
Nobody inside. No trap. No ambush.
I stepped back out and waved at the woods. Jamal stepped out first, head moving around to watch again, though I suspected it wasn't Z he was looking for this time. Anna waited until he reached me and followed.
I wanted to ask her why because tactically it was a smart move. If anyone opened fire with the two of them in the parking lot, they would both go down, but waiting only exposed one of them at a time. That meant training, and what I knew about her so far didn't indicate training.
Then I remembered I didn't know that much about her and the hair on the back of my neck stood up.
The front of the bank was still in full light and I didn't want to sit exposed, but I didn't want to hide in the building either.
“Were you supposed to signal?” I asked Jamal. “Hang that sock on the door or something?”
He sniffed.
“They said just be here.”
“They?”
“Brian and his wife.”
I was way too paranoid. Brian and Peg. Harriet too, if she was with them. The three of them qualified as a they.
“Should we hide?” Anna asked.
I looked at her pixie frame standing on the bottom step, sunlight glinting off her brown hair turning strands an auburn shade. She had the shotgun cocked on her hip and I thought to saw off the barrel so she could balance it better in her smaller grip.
I would have never had that thought five weeks ago.
“Unless they're doing loops or passing patrols, they're watching,” I said.
I didn't have much confidence in that, but it's what I would have done. And if they were watching I hoped they would hurry up so we could find out what's going on and get back on the road.
Driving with Jamal had given me confidence to drive faster too. I'd just have to rely on luck and reflexes to make the six hundred plus miles remaining. But if I could keep it at seventy, I was only eight hours away from an answer.
Eight hours.
That made me shudder.
“What is it?” Anna shifted the shotgun, ready.
Brian saved me. I nodded as he stepped onto the road across from the bank and gave a tiny wave with one hand.
We hurried across to join him.
CHAPTER ELEVEN
Brian looked rough. Like he spent a night in the woods, which he had. Peg didn't look much better and the only thing that set Harriet apart were the lines down her cheeks that tears had carved through the soot and dirt.
We followed him through the woods to a small clearing lined with three strands of wire to make an enclosure. A bird on the top wire twittered at us and flew off in a huff.
He led us past their campsite and we kept walking several hundred meters through the trees to the pasture. I could see a smouldering pile of ash next to a pond in the distance.
“What happened?”
“They came last night right after Harriet showed up with him and two others,” Brian indicated Jamal with a point of his chin. “Gave us an ultimatum. A kid. Can you believe that?”
“The youth of today,” I answered. “No respect for their elders.”
“I blame their parents.”
“They killed them. Said the Z were their fault.”
“I can believe it with this little bastard. Tiny little Napoleon looking tween.”
“He's sixteen.”
“He looks twelve. Wait until you see him.”
“Why did Hannah go with him?”
Harriet sobbed behind me, carving new streaks.
“We don't know,” Brian answered. “He told us to get out. I said no. They tossed the fireballs at the porch.”
“Not much on negotiation, huh?”
“Pretty powerful tactic I think. He gave us his demands, we said no.”
“You said no,” Peg interjected.
“I said no.”
“And he burned our house down.”
“Technically you had only been there a couple of days so I don't know if it's your house yet,” I said.
“Squatters rights,” said Brian. “Now it's burned to squat. The boats were a good idea.”
“Glad you're okay.”
“Yeah, good to see you. I didn't know if you'd come back.”
I didn't tell him how close it was.
“Alright,” I said turning from the wreckage and putting a hand on Harriet's shoulder. “Let's go get Hannah.”
I led
them back to the campsite first. Brian stoked the tiny embers in the fire, feeding little branches and sticks into the fire until it was a small blaze. Anna rooted in the knapsack and opened a can of soup for each of us, passing them to Peg who rested them in the coals to warm.
The clearing was soon filled with the warm tang of bubbling soup, and it smelled delicious. I watched Jamal lick his lips and he grinned when he saw he was caught.
“We been eating cafeteria food,” he said. “No soup. My momma used to make us grilled cheese and tomato soup for lunch on the weekends. It smells like home.”
“I used to make it for my kids,” I told him and passed him the first can. “Tell us about where they are.”
The others took their cans in hand, wrapped in gloves or shirtsleeves so the hot tin didn't burn their fingers, and slurped it down. I took long slow sips. Tomato soup wasn't my favourite thing, in fact, this was my first can in twenty years. My kids liked it, but I preferred a chicken broth instead of a tomato base.
But this soup was one of the best things I ever tasted. Chalk it up to the campfire, or being back in familiar company despite the task before us. Anna flashing her eyes at me across the fire, Brian falling into an easy familiarity by my side, Peg pressed against him, and Harriet next to her.
I had two families now, and as much as I wanted to skip out on this one to save the other, I knew I couldn't. Someone had threatened my new family, burned their safe haven down and kidnapped our youngest member.
I could feel the warm rumble in my stomach that threatened to boil over and I was glad for a moment I could blame it on the soup.
CHAPTER TWELVE
The kids were holed up in a school building in the town that once served as a county seat. There were four buildings behind a tall fence installed back when school shooters were one of our fears. The ten-foot metal fence was black and circled the school, pointed faux spear designs on top to give it an elegant look.
“Those would be good to kill Z,” said Brian from my shoulder.
We were hidden behind a building corner watching three Z press against the fence. The four school buildings bordered a central courtyard and we caught occasional flashes of children darting around. Their laughter and squeals carried and I suspected that's what drew the Z.