by Adam Millard
It was Jared, Terry's ex-cellmate back in Jackson. He was a good kid, albeit a little wimpy and naïve. Jared treated Terry as a father-figure, somebody to look up to, to aspire to, to keep his ass alive for long enough to reach middle-age.
'I'm down here,' Terry said, pushing himself out of the armchair and stretching like a cat who had just roused from a particularly pleasant nap.
There was footfall, a metallic tap-tap-tap as Jared edged down the stairs and into the basement. When he appeared, Terry could see that he was disappointed. His face hung low, with a jaw that threatened to drop off at any given moment, and his eyes were sparkling with impending tears.
'What's the matter?' Terry said, closing the gap between them. 'You look like you've been diagnosed with fucking cancer.'
'Shane and Flyboy are back,' Jared said. 'Shane reckons the city is filled with lurkers. They didn't get anything tonight.'
Terry relaxed a little. 'Thank fuck for that,' he exhaled. 'For a minute there I thought you were gonna tell me one of them had been bit.'
Jared smiled. 'No, nothing that bad, but it ain't exactly good news, either.' He dropped his shoulders, clearly disappointed and visibly despondent. 'I don't know how much longer some of those people up there are going to last without medicine,' he continued. 'Old man Martigan is on his last legs.'
'He'll be fine,' Terry said, hoping that he was right. 'Old man Martigan has survived wars worse than this one. I don't think he's going to let a little cold finish him off, do you?'
Jared shrugged. 'I guess not.'
'Right,' Terry said. 'I'm going to have a word with Shane, see if there's anything I can do to help. In the meantime, I want you to go to sleep. You look like a fucking addict.'
This brought a chuckle out of Jared who, up until that point, looked apt to burst into tears.
'Haven't touched anything in years, man,' Jared whispered. 'One thing good about prison.'
Terry sighed and smiled, both of which were perfunctory. At least he had succeeded in making Jared feel a little better.
He headed up the stairs in search of perhaps the groups' least favourite man of the hour.
THREE
The main hall was a hive of commotion. It looked as if everyone, children included, had made their way in to discover just how badly the night's scavenge had gone. Shane was at the side of the room, trying to calm himself down; it wasn't good practice to kick off against the enraged survivors, but their lack of understanding was justified. If they had seen, though, the mass of lurkers beneath the chopper, they would have been offering him congratulations on a decision well-made.
As it stood, they were just feeling sorry for themselves.
Arguments around the room were erupting into actual violence; a fight between two of Victor Lord's men became the main focus of attention, with children trying to get a better view of the tussle.
Ah, well, Shane thought. While they're watching those two dickheads kick the shit out of each other they're not questioning me.
Terry Lewis, complete with bible, sidled up next to Shane. He was, perhaps, the only man in the room that Shane wanted to talk to right now.
'Bad night, huh?' Terry said, glancing down at the leather-bound cover of the love of his life. Shane wondered if Terry would ever stop with the gratitude.
It was a book, for fuck's sake! Nothing more than words.
'You could say that,' Shane grimaced. He reached into one rucksack and pulled out two bottles of water. Handing one to Terry, he said, 'There were just too fucking many of them. We wouldn't have stood a chance.'
'If it helps,' Terry said, unscrewing the bottle and taking a small sip, 'I don't blame you. Some of these people, they don't have a clue what we went through. Most of them were picked up before it got real ugly. Shit, I'd be surprised if even half of them have seen a horde, yet. Shock the shit out of 'em, that would.' He took a larger swig of water before continuing. 'I'm not sure who these people look up to, but it sure as shit ain't any of us. That sonofabitch captain thinks he owns them; treats 'em like goddamned POWs, or something he just trod in.'
Shane nodded. 'He's got it coming,' he said. 'I could have tossed him off the fucking roof a half hour ago.'
Terry laughed. 'Why didn't you?'
Shane looked down to Terry's bible and tapped the cover. 'If all of this has taught me one thing,' he said, 'it's that demons and angels exist. I'm pretty sure I don't want to come back as one of those fucking things, so I'm trusting the man upstairs to take care of me.'
'The man upstairs,' Terry smiled, 'would have probably made you his right-hand man if you'd kicked that prick's ass over the edge. Now, I am a man of God, and I don't condone murder, at least not anymore, but do you really think he'd be missed around here?'
Shane shrugged. 'Hope we find out soon.'
Just then, Marla Emmett paced the length of the room. Her beauty, even with flesh-eating bastards roaming around outside and the apocalypse nigh-on in full-swing, was something to admire. Shane could see it; he'd noticed it back in Jackson, where Marla had worked in the infirmary. The only difference now, though, was her clothes, and the fact that she had managed to obtain a purseful of cosmetics. Her natural beauty had always been there, but with make-up and a nice dress she was divine.
'I swear to God, Shane,' Marla began, before realising that they were in the presence of Terry. 'Sorry, Terry, I'm just a little worked up, is all.'
'No offence taken,' Terry smiled, and it was the smile of a wise man, the kind of heart-warming expression you would get from your own grandfather. 'Shane and I were just discussing our apparent President.'
Marla thought for a moment, and then it clicked. 'Oh, you mean Victor-Lord-of-the-fucking-manor. Do as I say or my buddies will shoot you in the face, that one?'
Shane smiled. 'And how has your day been, Marla?'
She sighed. 'Apart from worrying my ass off about you the whole time, and then finding somebody I hate more than Charles Dean, it's been one of the best days of my life.' Charles Dean had been the governor of the prison at which she worked, and Shane and Terry were incarcerated; one mean bastard that wouldn't have looked out of place as a Bond villain.
'Glad to hear it,' Shane said. His spirits were lifting by the second, which was what decent friends were for.
'From what I hear,' Marla said, checking around to make sure that nobody was in earshot, 'you've been grounded.'
'Hol-eeeee shit,' Shane whistled. 'How many survivors we got here? Thirty, maybe forty? And it's taken less than half-an-hour for that shit to get back to me.' He held his hands up. 'That's gotta be some kind of record.'
'Is it true?' Terry asked with some seriousness.
Shane shook his head. 'Victor likes to think so,' he said. 'But you know what they say: You can't keep a good man down.'
Marla glanced towards Terry. His white beard was trembling, as if he were talking to himself beneath it. She turned back to Shane.
'What are you going to do?' she asked.
Shane scratched his head, and Marla could tell instantly that he wasn't comfortable with sharing. She was, however, pretty damn good at pushing peoples' buttons, and if Shane knew anything about her – which by now he most certainly should – it was that she wouldn't back down.
He was better of spilling now, otherwise it could get very annoying, very quickly.
'I'm going out,' Shane whispered. Marla made out that she hadn't heard correctly, even though she had. Terry simply placed a hand on the cover of the bible, as if in silent prayer for Shane. 'Oh, come on!' Shane suddenly snapped. 'My wife and daughter could still be out there, alive, stuck somewhere, somewhere where I can get to them.'
It was true; Shane had spoken of his family a lot, and it was the not-knowing that had started to take its toll.
'You're not serious?' Marla sneered. 'They could be alive, sure. You knew that anyway. But say they are, huh, and they're out there. Do you have any idea how unlikely it is of you finding them? They could be fucking anywhere. A needle in a haystack doesn'
t even begin to cover it.'
'She's right,' Terry said. 'Even if you found them, you might wish you hadn't even gone a-looking. What if...what if they're turned? What if you had to look into your daughter's eyes and, I don't mean to step out of line here, there's nothing left inside them? Could you live with that?'
Shane knew that he could; it would be easier to live with than what he was going through now. He hadn't expected them to understand, and he had prepared for that very scenario.
'I'm going,' he said. 'I have to. You're safe here, at least for now, and I'll be back in a few days, with or without my family.'
'Oh, hell no!' Marla said shaking her head as if there was a piece of recalcitrant gum stuck in her hair. 'I am not staying here with those idiots.' She gestured to the soldiers who were now dusting themselves down and explaining themselves to Victor Lord, who looked furious. 'If you're going, then I'm coming with you.'
Shane was about to tell object when Terry held his bible aloft.
'Me, too,' Terry said. 'We'll be taken care of; you have my word.'
Marla gave Shane a smug grin, one that said he had very little choice in the matter.
Realising he was stuck between a rock and a hard place, Shane sighed. 'Okay, but if we're going to do this, then we're going to do it right. I'm thinking we leave first thing, before sun-up, that way we'll be gone before that prick, Victor, gets up for his morning shit.'
'I assume we're taking a vehicle,' Terry said, not intending it to be a question.
'One of the Jeeps,' Shane replied. He'd given it a lot of thought, and the Land Rover Snatch was probably the most secure vehicle they had available – armoured glass, mesh screen, Barracuda thermal insulation. There was no point taking one of the Defenders, of which they had two. A Defender was marginally quicker, but if a horde of lurkers managed to get a hold of it they would tear it to parts in minutes, and then they would tear the passengers into pieces in roughly the same amount of time.
'Victor is not gonna fucking like this,' Marla said, although the way in which she said it suggested a certain happiness at the fact.
'We'll be gone for a few days, a week at most,' Shane said. 'Jackson ain't that far; we'll do it in twelve hours, max.'
'Then we've just got to hope that all the lurkers have headed on to somewhere else, find your family, convince them to come back with us, and Bob's your mother's brother.' Marla didn't sound convinced with the plan, although it had been her own idea to sign up.
'Sounds like a pretty fucking fine plan, to me,' Terry chuckled. 'I'll make sure that Jared's awake in plenty of time.'
Shane, for a moment, forgot all about Terry's ex-cellmate. It wasn't that he disliked him, it was that he was liable to get them all killed. Jared was simply not up to busting zombie skull, and taking him along was a risk that Shane hadn't even considered.
'I know that look,' Terry said. 'You honestly think he's going to stay here? Especially if I'm going. Not a chance.'
Shane sighed. It was cute, in a strange, ex-prison sort of way, that Jared needed to be around Terry. The father-figure element had a lot to do with it, although Jared appeared to be more of a Mommy's boy.
'If you think he'll be able to deal with what we're doing,' Shane said through clenched teeth, 'then he's your responsibility. But, if I think for one minute that he's slowing us down or acting the wuss, you're taking the next fuelled vehicle we find and bringing his ass back here.'
'Agreed,' Terry said, a smile creeping onto his face. 'I'll go talk to him, make sure he understands your terms. In the meantime,' he said, pointing across to Victor Lord who was still berating his men as if they were at kindergarten, 'get what you need together, and stay out of that prick's way. If he gets wind of this he'll lock us all down, and I don't know about you but I've had enough of metal bars and one meal-a-day.'
Terry turned and headed off, through the double-doors at the opposite end of the room.
'He's getting on a bit,' Marla said. 'Do you think he'll be able to keep up?'
Shane shrugged his shoulders. It was a good question, and one that he was a little unsure of answering. 'Well, let's put it this way,' he said. 'What choice has he got?'
FOUR
The sweat poured down his face and onto his pastel-blue shirt, staining it like a Rorschach test. God, it was hot, and yet he shivered, and as he trembled with the uncontrollable spasms brought on by the flu he felt a little squirt of piss escape into his pants.
Great, Max Martigan thought. Survived two wars, made it all the way to ninety-seven without so much as a hint of dementure, and all it takes is a fucking cold to make me piss myself.
He chuckled to himself, which made him cough until he was red in the face.
When he managed to compose himself once again, Susie Bloom dabbed at the sweat on his brow with an already sodden handkerchief.
'What's the matter?' she asked, referring to his sudden bout of hysterics. 'Told yourself a joke that you hadn't heard before?'
He shook his head, fighting back another coughing-fit. 'I was just thinking,' he said. 'Do you know how old I am? I'll tell you. I'm old enough to remember the moon-landing as if it were just yesterday. I can remember hiding in the basement on my mother's farm when I was eight years old, just in case those Nazi-bastards decided to drop a few groundshakers on us. I signed up for the next war just to get my own back for all that time I spent in the fucking basement – pardon my French. And do you know what the funny thing is?'
Susie didn't, but she knew that whatever the old man said next probably wouldn't be as funny to her as it was to him.
'It's taken the dead to rise to make me piss in my shorts.' With that he burst into yet another uncontrollable cackle. Susie couldn't help but join in; he was infectious, at least in the comedic states. By God, she hoped he wasn't infectious in any other way.
Just then, as the pair laughed together, Kelly Bloom appeared and sat herself down next to Max. Kelly was Susie's daughter, and despite her youth – she was eight-and-a-half, although she would like to tell people she was almost eight-and-three-quarters – she knew more than most adults could ever dream of knowing.
'What's so funny?' she asked, smiling along. It really was infectious. 'Max, you look like you seriously need to take a breath.'
He coughed, spluttered, composed himself, and then started laughing all over again.
'Max and I were just talking,' Susie said. 'He was just telling me about the war.'
Kelly's expression turned to one of confusion. 'Well, that's not funny,' she said, arching her eyebrows. 'You old people sure do some strange things.'
Max, still laughing and choking, said, 'We do! We really do, but you'll realise, young Kelly, that when you reach my age, nothing really matters anymore. Somebody will be there, doing everything for you, wiping bits that you haven't even thought about for over a decade, and in the meantime you're left with a giant void to fill. Take it from me, laughter is probably the best way to fill the void.'
Kelly had no idea what the old man was rambling on about, but it appeared to make sense to her mother, who was looking on with a mixture of intrigue and acknowledgement.
'Kelly, why don't you go play with Sam?' Susie said as she wiped the sweat from Max's face.
'Mo-om,' Kelly whined. 'I know he's the same age as me, but that doesn't mean we have to be best friends.'
'Nobody said that you have to marry him,' Susie sniggered. 'Just go and talk to him while Mommy finishes up over here.'
Kelly sighed; a massive exhalation that was both forced and exaggerated. 'Okay,' she said. 'But I'm only doing it because you asked nicely, and if he annoys me I'm going to tell him that he's an idiot.'
Max laughed aloud, so much so that his eyeballs bulged from their sunken sockets. 'You make sure to tell him that,' he said. 'Tell him momma didn't raise no fool.'
Kelly laughed, although she had no idea why. She stood, waved a tiny hand at Max Martigan, kissed her mother on the cheek, and danced across the hall as if she didn't have a
care in the world.
'She's a sprite,' Max said. 'You've done well with her.'
Susie shook her head. 'She can be a handful at times. The thing about bringing up a smart kid is that they soon become aware of just how fucking smart they are.' She straightened up Max's shirt as if she was preparing him for his first day at school; he smiled as she did it. 'Once she found out she was cleverer than your average whipper-snapper, it's been a battle of wits.'
Max pushed himself forward onto his elbows. Too long spent lying on the cold, hard floor had numbed his ass to the point of no return. 'Well,' he said. 'She should do just fine, despite this chaos.'
Susie didn't like to see the old man in such discomfort, but it was to be expected. A ninety-seven year old man, stricken with flu, could only put on an act of defiance for a while; Max Martigan was reaching the end of his bravery display.
Susie knew that the man would be dead soon. Age wasn't the problem; it was the pneumonia that would surely take a pop at him, or the toll on his brittle heart. It saddened her deeply to even ponder how long he had left, but he didn't seem to mind.
And he knew; he knew better than anyone else.
Perhaps it was the fact that the planet had gone to Hell in a handbasket that removed the fear of death. At least he wouldn't be returning as one of the infected, not if he died in the compound.
Susie knew which way she would rather go, and it didn't involve being torn limb from limb by a horde of flesh-eating zombies.
'I don't suppose there are any pills left for an old man like me?' Max grunted, though he already knew the answer.
Susie shook her head. 'They didn't bring any back with them,' she said. 'I'll check with the captain, but I don't think there are any left in storage.'
She rolled back onto her haunches and gripped his cold, rheumy hand between her own.
'You're going to be just fine,' she said, offering him the most reassuring smile she could muster.
'Kinda doubt it,' he grinned, his teeth a little stained from years of dental neglect and caffeine addiction; it was better than the alcoholism that he had succumbed to in his earlier years.