Zombie Ocean (Book 3): The Least

by Michael John Grist

  He lifted it out and climbed in. The woman frowned. Her skin looked like old parchment, lined with ground-in dirt.

  "How'd you do that?"

  "I fell."

  She studied him for a time, then spat again. "You know anything about hunting foxes?"

  Masako chuckled politely.

  "Not a thing," Cerulean said, "but we're willing to learn."

  "Willing's good," said the woman, brushing a sliver of silvery hair out of her face. "God willing and all. I ain't seen folks since the big flood rolled out. Sit down." She gestured to the grass around the fire.

  Masako climbed out cautiously and started over, Cerulean following.

  "Cynthia," the woman said, pointing the shotgun down. "That's me."

  They cooked and ate fried spam and beans together from the RV's stores, with wild onions the woman rustled up out of a burlap sack.

  "You need these for vitamins," she said, holding one up like it was a diamond to be studied in a fine light. "They'll put the stink on you, but you'll shit perfect for three days."

  Masako gasped and laughed. They made other small talk, sharing theories about where everyone had gone, though Cynthia was certain it had to be the rapture.

  "There's not a more sinful soul than me," she said, and winked at Masako. "I ain't never said my rosaries right."

  Cerulean laughed. It was a good sign that there were other people. It meant they wouldn't need him. Masako explained about Amo's plan, heading to LA to see a superhero movie, and Cynthia thought on it, spat once, then nodded.

  "All right."

  They drove on, taking it in turns at the wheel and sharing stories.

  "I just roamed," Cerulean told them, when it was his turn. "Nothing impressive. Up and down the coast."

  They pressed a little, but he couldn't tell them about Matthew. That was for him alone.

  That night Cynthia retreated into the woods to sleep, carrying her shotgun and a sleeping roll. "Don't come looking for me, and I'll not come looking for you," she said.

  After she was gone Masako laughed and put both her hands on Cerulean's shoulders in his chair, like they were a couple.

  He had to go.

  * * *

  The next day they passed another survivor on the road near Cleveland.

  He was in his early thirties, standing in the parking lot of an Ardy's, dressed in denim pants with tall cowboy boots and no shirt. A leather gun-belt was slung round his waist with a pistol holster on his left hip and a long shotgun holster fastened to his right like a sword scabbard. He also wore a black shoulder harness round his tanned bare chest with a dark pistol flush to his side.

  He was standing next to a red Mustang muscle car with a yellow sponge in his hand and a red foamy bucket by his feet.

  He stared at them and they stared at him as they rolled to a stop.

  "I'll be damned," Cynthia said, peering out the open window in the passenger seat. "Boy, are you washing that car?"

  The man glared back at her. He had dark features, Hispanic, with a tousle of dark hair over heavy brows. He looked angry, Cerulean thought, to be stumbled upon in such a way.

  "Yes ma'am," he said. "Mustang '69. It's a good car."

  Cynthia cackled like a crazy old witch.

  Cerulean was already opening the back doors and lowering the wheelchair out. Seconds later he was rolling over to the man, who took a step back and put his hand to the gun at his waist.

  "Far enough," he said.

  Cerulean stopped a few yards away near the back of the car and raised his empty hands, palm out. "I'm sorry about her," he said quietly. "Cynthia. We just met her."

  "Can't hear you, boy!" Cynthia called from the RV. "Speak up, this is first contact."

  He spoke up. "I'm Cerulean, that's Cynthia, and here's Masako. It's good to see another survivor." He smiled to show he meant it. "We're on Amo's trail headed west, have you seen it?"

  The man's brows pressed close together like lumps of suspicious dough in a fox stew. "Julio. And this is I-80," he said, nodding at the highway. "I don't know what trail you're talking about."

  Cerulean nodded, studying the man. Three guns he wore, and drove in an overpowered hot rod car. Metal grilles lay on the asphalt nearby, partially clean, partially stained black and red, cut to match the shapes of the windows. All of that told a story. Plus there were two zombies on the gravel behind the car with their heads blown off, leaking blood from the severed neck holes, which pretty much shouted it out.

  Julio noticed him looking. "Shotgun," he said. "Clean, takes off the whole head. Only way to kill them I figure."

  "I've got news, then," Cerulean said. "You won't believe it, but it's true." He pointed at the pallid gray bodies. "They don't kill us."

  Julio's brows nuzzled closer together. "What?"

  "It's true. They come close, sure, but they don't kill. So you don't need your guns."

  Julio's brows pressed so close they seemed to almost combine into one fuzzy bump. At the same his right hand crept over to the stock of the pistol on his hip, and hovered there. "Are you serious? You want me to put my guns down, now?"

  Cerulean licked his lips. The situation was slipping. "I'm not saying that. Look at me, in a wheelchair. You think I could outrun a horde of them? You see me carrying a gun? That's all."

  Julio looked over the wheelchair frame. His hand was still on the pistol. "So you're in a chair. I could sit in a chair too, doesn't mean anything."

  "Is he a moron?" Cynthia shouted through the window, laughing again. Cerulean winced. "Is that right, boy, you too thick to see it, or you don't want to?"

  "Sorry," Cerulean mouthed, "she's-"

  "You shut that old bitch up," Julio interrupted, his voice level and firm. "You may be the first people I've seen in months, but that doesn't make me sport. You hear that grandma?"

  "Pose for us!" she called back. "Sud yourself good, boy, and give us a muscle show."

  Julio's eyebrows throbbed, a calculation turning inside his head, then he drew his gun and pointed it at the RV.

  "Slight me one more time, you crazy old bitch. Once more."

  The bag of cold milk flumped hard into Cerulean's belly. He hadn't planned it going this way. Cynthia just cackled madly. Julio clicked back the hammer, and Cerulean wondered how hard it would be for this man to kill the three of them, shotguns to the head like they were zombies, then just drive on in his Mustang.

  "Cynthia, shut up," shouted Cerulean.

  "Why should I? Jumped-up shit like him, he's not for us anyway."

  "Who are you to say? He's a survivor like us."

  She cackled some more. "You think he's like us? Think again, boy. This one loves what he's found out here, don't you see? Loves it a little too much, so he's ready to draw down on a little provocation. He don't know I've got my hunting rifle, armor-piercing round, pointed at him through this tissue-thin door. Maybe he thinks I don't know how to shoot from the hip. Either way, he's an idiot and we'd be best driving on."

  Sweat beaded on the tip of Cerulean's nose. To rub it away now seemed too much movement. The air was suddenly hot and still, chafing against his skin like a sweaty, salty sponge.

  "If we all just-" he tried, but Julio cut him off.

  "I'll count to three," he said, as cool and calm as Clint Eastwood. Perhaps he was enjoying it. "On three, you drop your rifle out the door and make your apologies to me."

  "And if I don't?"

  Julio pointed with his free hand toward the bonnet of his car. "You join the choir like everyone else."

  Cerulean craned to the side to see what he was pointing at, and the bag of milk shivered and grew in his belly. On the front of the car was a low metal rack, with a few tufts of what looked like white hair sticking up in two places.

  Heads?

  He gulped. He looked at the headless zombies on the ground, then back again. Cynthia had a clear view of the whole car from her seat, while he'd just seen it.

  "Now you get it," Cynthia said.

&nb
sp; "One," Julio said.

  "Call out three already," Cynthia hollered back.

  "Two."

  Cerulean looked between them, locked in a stupid battle of wills. This was not what he'd planned. This wasn't any better than Matthew under the gun tower, dying for nothing. Without thinking he pushed hard on the chair's wheels, driving it forward toward Julio, then set his hands on the armrests and dived.

  It wasn't a pretty dive, nothing like a true arm-stand with his legs up in the air so gracefully, but it had power and sent him flying through the air at Julio.

  Julio spun too late and Cerulean hit him bodily, chest to chest, so together they fell. Julio hit the asphalt hard on his bare back while Cerulean landed on him, thumping the air out of his lungs. Julio tried to throw him off but he wasn't nearly as strong as Cerulean, who'd been crawling, climbing and rolling using only his arms for months.

  He snatched Julio's wrists and smacked the right one against the ground until the gun came loose, then he rolled off and easily guided both of Julio's arms tightly behind his back.

  Julio cursed and jerked but Cerulean just held him locked, using his arms like they were reins.

  "All right, Jesus!" Julio shouted when it was clear he wouldn't escape. "Let me go."

  Cynthia trotted over and chuckled down on them. "Neat work, son. Trussed up like a chicken."

  Cerulean turned to look up at her, red-faced himself. She was holding her rifle over her shoulder at a coquettish angle with obvious pleasure on her face, and something about that just punched all his buttons at once.

  "You never do that again," he snapped up from the ground. "Do you understand me, Cynthia? Play the crazy old woman all you want, but you do not pull a gun on another survivor again. I don't care how many zombie heads they've got on the front of their car, or round their necks like a necklace, you just … goddamn … don't."

  Cynthia frowned down at him, her weathered features wrinkling like skin on custard. "You sure look a prize specimen, son, a negro barking orders from the ground. Stand up if you want to put your foot down, boy, else hush up and let the adults deal."

  Cerulean stared at her for a second. She stared back. Then he laughed. She really didn't get it.

  "You're not thinking," he said. "You think you're in charge here? You think I'll give a shit if we leave you behind? I won't. I'll drive on, with Masako and Julio here if he wants to come, and we'll go to LA to find Amo, because people are all we've got. Get that in your head. So he killed some zombies, I don't care! I will leave you behind, and you'll be alone. If that's what you want, go do it. If not, and I'm pretty sure it's not, Cynthia, then you apologize right now to Julio."

  Cynthia snorted. "Exile me, is it? You don't scare me. You ain't got the nuts to do anything like it."

  He laughed again. Did these people not know about Matthew? They didn't know who he was at all.

  He let go of Julio's arms and snatched up his pistol off the road. Julio let out an almighty gasp and rolled away, coming up with the gun from his chest holster steady in both his hands, leveled on Cynthia. In turn Cynthia had her rifle leveled at his chest.

  "Bitch," he said.

  "Spic," she said.

  "Goddamn," Cerulean roared from the floor. "Spit one more foul piece of racist shit, you stupid honky bitch, and I'll shoot you myself. Are we clear? Now put your goddamn rifle down and tell this man you're sorry."

  Cynthia's eyelid twitched. Julio stood red-faced but impassive.

  "Say it!" Cerulean shouted. "And you can apologize to me too, while you're at. Hunting foxes, goddamn!"

  Cynthia licked her lips, her tongue darting out. "I apologize for insulting you," she said, enunciating each word carefully, and when she was done she gave Cerulean a look a child might give, as if to say, 'Enough?'.

  "And me," he said.

  She rolled it out again. "I apologize for insulting you."

  "Good," huffed Cerulean. "Julio, I'm sorry I jumped you. Cynthia, I'm sorry I called you a honky bitch. I hope you don't mind, but I'm borrowing this gun. I'm driving a hundred yards up the road, and you two are going to make up. One of you shoots the other, Masako and me are gone. Either of you wants to join us, you need only come ask nicely. Else we're gone in," he stopped to look at his wrist, but he hadn't worn a watch there in years. "Real soon."

  Julio chanced a glance down at him, sneering. He wouldn't forget being jumped any time soon, that was clear. Cynthia didn't budge.

  "Grow up," Cerulean said to them both, then turned his back and crawled to the wheelchair. It was undignified perhaps, to keep on crawling, but what was dignity now? A sham. Democracy too. He reached the chair, hauled himself up, and was unsurprised to see the two of them still pointing their weapons at each other.

  "It's my damn van," Cerulean said, "and I say who rides in it."

  * * *

  He parked up in front of a Boston Market only a few lots over, with a good eye line on Julio and Cynthia, standing like the last two pistoleers in a Mexican standoff. Masako rested her hand on his.

  "That was amazing," she said.

  He shrugged. "Screw them."

  Masako nodded. "She's an angry lady. She may have a point though. He doesn't look quite right."

  Cerulean grunted, not looking. "She's dumb. He's crazy with being alone."

  A moment later she tapped him playfully on the cheek. He had to fight to keep the irritation off his face. He was glad he did, because she was grinning flirtatiously.

  "You seemed pretty confident I'd come with you. You and me in the RV?"

  There wasn't much to say to that. The truth, maybe, that he didn't too much care if she came? His obligation would be done with if she didn't. Or should he let her believe her truth, that they were two lone survivors slowly falling in love, only for him to jilt her in Vegas?

  He couldn't decide which one was less cruel, so he said nothing. Her hand stayed on his for a long time.

  Even from this distance he could see Julio's back was bleeding. He'd hit him hard and he'd skinned himself on the rough asphalt.

  They still had their guns up but they were talking at least, and that was good.

  He honked the horn and leaned his head out the window to shout. "Cynthia you put your rifle down right now or so help me."

  It sounded like the kind of thing an adult would say to a misbehaving child, but it worked, and Cynthia lowered the barrel a few degrees. For a horrible second it seemed like Julio was about to shoot, then he lowered his gun too.

  They talked more. It took a while for them to put the weapons away completely. Then Cynthia pointed and Julio took the heads off the front of his car. Next, bizarrely, Cynthia picked up the sponge and started washing the car.

  "What on Earth?" Masako whispered.

  Cerulean laughed. "Looks like she cut a deal."

  Julio walked around the car's perimeter, kicking the window grills to the side. So perhaps he believed them? Soon enough he got in his shiny clean Mustang and drove over slowly, with Cynthia walking alongside.

  "We've reached an understanding," she said, as he parked alongside the RV.

  "Rush me and steal the van?" Cerulean asked. Nobody laughed.

  "Avoid each other. Take a look at your friend Amo. See what he's worth, then decide."

  Cerulean nodded, and looked through the two open windows to Julio. Sitting up in the RV he was taller than him.

  "Good plan. I'm glad to have you."

  "Yeah," Julio said, though something about his expression was off. The brows, perhaps, calculating furiously under the surface. His dark eyes maybe, gazing a second too hard. "I'll scout ahead."

  He revved the Mustang's engine and tore off. Masako opened the slide door and Cynthia climbed in.

  "I reckon you've let the devil in by the front door with him," she said. "He's madder than me. You'll see."

  "Sit down," Cerulean said, a little more harshly than he meant to, and put the RV into gear.

  15. CAIRNS

  Julio wanted to scour Chicago
for survivors.

  They argued about it their first evening together, sitting round a fire in a campsite north of South Bend, Indiana, after they'd eaten their ration of canned beans, dried rice and turnips Cynthia dug out of a garden.

  "You said it's about survivors only," Julio said, staring through the flickering yellow flames at Cerulean sat in his wheelchair. "Your friend Amo's made a trail, that's great. Let's help him and gather who we can."

  It was a fair point. Masako, sitting close by his side as if for warmth, though it was sweltering already and the fire just made it worse, plainly agreed. Even Cynthia did, with a dull grunt.

  He didn't want to tell them why they should hurry: that Amo had tried to kill himself once already, that he might try again, and if there was no Amo then he'd be stuck in charge of them and would never be free.

  "I don't want the trail to go cold," was all he could say.

  Cynthia harrumphed. "Trail's written in traffic paint, son, it ain't going anywhere."

  Julio eyed him. They'd hardly spoken all day, with him always 'scouting' ahead in his Mustang. After that first burst of speed, racing out of sight, he'd dropped back and kept fairly close. Perhaps he was worried they'd turn off and leave him.

  At one point Julio had stopped at a railway crossing on the Ohio Turnpike just after Toledo, and Cerulean pulled the RV up behind. Julio had gotten out and stood on the tracks with his pistol drawn, pointing.

  There was a dust cloud in the distance, stretching back in a long diagonal along the rail tracks toward the horizon.

  "Now's your chance," Julio said. "Prove they're safe."

  "God, how many?" Masako whispered, craning for a better view.

  "Half a million," Cynthia said. "Lot of tramping feet. Protest march, maybe."

  Cerulean grimaced, then climbed out of the RV and into his chair. They waited for a while, until the first of the horde came into view round the corner of a long stand of Douglas fir. They were gray, ragged, and presented a front as solid as a wave.

  Cerulean started rolling toward them, feeling like a magician being forced to perform at a kid's party. "Just don't shoot," he said as he went by Julio. "You'll get us all killed."