Brent pulled on the sweats the zombie had given him. They were too big for him, but he cinched the drawstring tight and sat on the floor to pull on his socks and boots, and the other men did the same.
It was strange to put on clothes after weeks of running around half-naked. Brent felt empowered, like a human being again, and wondered if that weren’t part of the reason the zombies wouldn’t allow them to wear clothing. They didn’t want their hostages to feel human. Perhaps they didn’t want to think of their captives as human.
For the first time, Brent wondered what it must be like for them: to reawaken after a season of death to a decayed and inhuman form. To die in agony and terror and be reborn a monster, in thrall to an uncontrollable hunger for human flesh.
It was probably why they were so cross.
He recalled his first encounter with one of the talking dead.
He hadn’t yet learned of the city called Home, hadn’t met Harold, was still wandering around in Middle Tennessee, with no real goal but simple survival. He hadn’t even ventured far from his hometown. His parents and fiancé were dead, and he was all alone, had been for months, and that was probably why he had cast caution to the wind when he saw a fellow survivor scrounging in a dumpster behind a Red Lobster restaurant.
At least he’d thought it was a fellow survivor. Before then, he had never seen a deadhead rooting in the garbage for food. Before then, he’d only seen them stumbling around like sleepwalkers in hell, unless they were chasing their dinner... or ripping it apart.
Even then, he’d had enough sense to watch the guy for a while. He had already learned, from bitter experience, that the living could be just as dangerous as the dead. Yet nothing in the man’s behavior had indicated he was anything other than an ordinary survivor.
Brent stood peeking around the corner of the Red Lobster, watching what appeared to be an old man in worn, loose-fitting garments pulling bags of garbage from the dumpster while singing under his breath. Every so often, the old man would pause and mutter happily to himself. “Ooh, that’s a good one,” he’d say, and then after a few more bars of that unfamiliar tune: “Ah, that’s nice! Now there’s a keeper!”
There were no zombies around. They were all gathered in the parking lot of the local Super Wal-Mart. It was one of the biggest herds Brent had ever seen. He wasn’t sure what that said about the people who once populated this town, but it couldn’t be complimentary.
“Hey!” he had hissed. “Hey, fella!”
The old man had stiffened, cocking his head as if he weren’t sure he’d heard something or only imagined it. He paused for a moment, then resumed his digging and humming.
Not wanting to call out any louder than that, Brent had abandoned his cover and approached the old man. He meant to warn him about the singing, tell him there was a giant herd of zombies just a few blocks away, but most of all he was hoping for some company. Even the company of a crazy old man was better than travelling alone, better than sitting in the dark night after night, conversing with people who weren’t really there.
“Hey, fella, you looking for food?” he said in a friendly voice. Brent had some food. He was thinking maybe he would offer to share it with the old man.
The old man wheeled around, grinning the biggest grin Brent had ever seen. Only it wasn’t a grin. The old man had no face, just a crusty skull with two filmy eyeballs rolling around in their sockets like dice in a magic eightball toy.
Am I going to get eaten today, magic eightball?
ALL SIGNS POINT TO YES!!!
“A BOY!” the creature squealed, sounding for all the world like some man-hungry spinster. There were bugs crawling over the remains of its face, and a large worm dangling from its sinus cavity. The end of the worm was twisting around like a tentacle. As Brent stood there gaping at the creature—at the talking deadhead!—the zombie snorted the twitching worm back into its skull like a fat guy slurping a strand of spaghetti into pursed lips.
“You’re… you’re dead!” Brent had stammered.
“No, not dead,” the old man said, stumbling toward him. It had a voice like a parrot, high-pitched and piercing. “Friend!”
It repeated the declarative, trying to sooth him. “Not dead. Friend! Not dead. Friend!” All the while, it shuffled toward Brent with its hands held out, bony fingers slightly curled.
“How can you be talking?” Brent had asked, backing away from the creature.
The old man had laughed. “With my mouth, silly! Same thing I eat with! Now come here and I’ll show you!”
Brent had pivoted and run from the monster. The creature had pursued him as far as the parking lot, shrieking, “Come here and I’ll show you,” over and over again. Brent was lucky the screeching revenant hadn’t alerted the herd of Wally World deadheads to the action going down at the Red Lobster.
He had gotten safely away, and was extremely cautious of approaching any survivors after that.
It was the first talking deadhead he’d seen, but he noticed more and more of them as time went on, and they got smarter and smarter. They started using tools, driving cars, wearing clothes. They started killing and eating their unenlightened brethren. They started using guns, and laying traps for the living. They started keeping humans as livestock, breeding them and eating the babies.
They started reclaiming the world they’d ruled when they were alive.
Brent finished booting his feet and hopped up. As he waited for the other men to finish dressing, he couldn’t tear his gaze away from the door. He tried but failed to keep the longing he felt from his face. Even though the glass was tinted, he swore he could feel that light on his skin, feel his flesh absorbing it, as the leaves of a plant absorbs sunlight for its nourishment. It had been weeks since he had walked beneath the open sky, and he realized his body was hungry for the sunlight, starved for it, so much so that if they turned him back now, sent him back to his cell unsatisfied, he would go mad with frustration. They would have to drag him back to his quarters kicking and screaming.
The withered clerk thrust a thick coat into his hands. “Here,” it said. “Put this on. It’s cold outside.”
As Brent slid his body into the insulated parka, he saw the other roosters doing the same. They had all been given coats. Jamie had a parka like his. Vickers had a tan jacket with faux fur collar. Ian had a double-breasted black dress coat. No one’s outerwear fit quite right. Brent’s coat was much too large. Ian’s jacket was tight in the shoulders. Vickers’ was too broad and Jamie’s too long. But it didn’t matter. None of them cared. Within moments they were marching outside, raising their cheeks to the sun. Like sunflowers they turned their faces to the brilliant orb in the sky, and all of the men shut their eyes and gloried in its light and warmth. Brent imagined he could feel the pores of his skin opening up, drinking it in. He imagined he could feel his body sucking the light in, storing the energy like a battery.
Cooley was coming. The fat zombie came lurching across the pavement, favoring its left leg. It addressed the leader of their escort, telling its subordinate where to march their mortal laborers and what it was it needed done.
Basically Cooley wanted them to move stuff.
Brent didn’t care. He was quite happy to perform some manual labor in exchange for an hour or two of glorious sunshine, even if it was colder than a well digger’s ass outside, as his father was wont to say.
For the next hour, the roosters labored in the parking lot of Longworths, loading and unloading building materials from the beds of several large trucks. They worked under the supervision of six armed guards, who all felt they were entitled to bark directions at their charges, some of them contradictory or unnecessarily critical.
It was cold enough to see their breath, but within twenty minutes Brent was sweating under his clothes, and his muscles had begun to burn from his exertions.
“I’ve gotten out of shape just sitting around the last couple weeks,” Brent panted, helping Vickers heft a wooden beam onto the back of a large yello
w truck. MANFRIED MUNICIPAL VEHICLE #420 was printed along the side of the truck, along with some other serial numbers and governmental mumbo jumbo.
“Yeah… try doing this… after sitting around… a couple years,” Vickers wheezed. He grinned when he said it, but he didn’t look amused. His face was pale and blotchy, and his skin was yellow. His sallow complexion was not so obvious in their quarters, which was always dimly lit, but it was quite evident in the sunshine. He looked haggard, and there were dark circles around his eyes, like a raccoon’s mask. Brent wondered if he had told the others he was ill yet. If he had, there had been no discussion of it. Not in his presence, anyway.
“Are you going to be okay?” Brent asked, concerned.
“Yeah,” Vickers said, but he started coughing a moment later, and turned away with a grimace.
“Back to work, meat!” one of their guards growled.
Vickers waved dismissively at the ghoul, still coughing.
Brent looked around for Jamie and Ian. The zombies had split them up. Jamie and Ian were unloading a vehicle over by the silver travel trailer the fat one named Cooley always seemed to be coming and going from. Brent wondered if he should be the one to tell the other two guys that Vickers was dying. Vickers was old school, a tough guy, the type who hated to admit to any weakness, even something as unavoidable as human mortality.
It would upset Ian to learn that Vickers was dying. Vickers had become sort of a surrogate father to the skinny young man. But it would put Jamie at ease. It might even derail whatever Machiavellian plot the real estate agent was incubating in his sharp but twisted mind. Jamie was still giving Brent meaningful looks and making enigmatic gestures when he thought Vickers wasn’t looking. Jamie was up to something; he just wouldn’t tell Brent what it was.
You’re thinking like you’re here to stay, Brent thought. And then he wondered: did he want to stay there?
His feelings were ambiguous enough to make his face flush with shame.
Yes, it was tempting. He had food and shelter. He had a routine, a purpose, and a modicum of certainty, so long as he didn’t buck his new masters-- so long as he ignored the fact that he was being kept like an animal, and his captors were going to eat all his babies.
The sheer horror of that last thought was so large it belied comprehension. His mind veered from it, like a plane banking away from a mountainside that had materialized out of the fog.
Furious with himself, he looked for some way he might escape this place: a gap in the fencing, a blind spot he might use to slip the guards.
He was shocked to discover two possible routes of escape.
On the side of the supermarket, near the far end of the parking lot, was a ladder running up to the roof of the building. The metal ladder was bolted to the building, its entire length enclosed in metal hoops for safety. It was the kind of ladder a repairman might use to access the air conditioning system, or whatever sort of equipment a grocery store might keep on the roof: satellite dishes, antennae, ductwork. What’s more, the fence did not enclose the compound completely. The fence that encircled the parking lot was attached to the corner of the building. If he climbed that ladder and ran to the end of the building, he could drop down outside the fence and into the alley that ran past the back of the store. It was so obvious he could not believe they didn’t know about it.
Of course, the trick was getting up the ladder, crossing the roof and jumping down outside the fence without getting shot or breaking his legs, and if he did manage to do all of that, he would have to make his way out of a town full of zombies.
Smart zombies.
The second possible avenue of escape he noted was a grated storm drain. It was at the western edge of the parking lot, a couple feet from the fence, centered in a shallow declivity in the pavement where the water must naturally pool whenever there was a lot of rain. It was not a large storm drain, but perhaps he could squeeze through it, make his escape through the sewer system. Of course, that presupposed he could get outside, that he could reach the storm drain without being spotted by any of the guards, and that the metal grill covering the storm drain could be removed.
Still, it was a possibility.
Ian and Jamie had finished their chore. Cooley exited the travel trailer and inspected their work, then pointed in Brent and Vickers’ direction. Little puffs of steam, like empty comic book word balloons, floated from Ian and Jamie’s mouths, but not from Cooley, and not from any of the zombies guarding them. Deadheads were not warm-blooded. It was a good way to tell a fresh deadhead from a living human being in cold weather, Brent thought. If you weren’t sure.
“You need to pick up the pace,” one of Brent’s guards growled. “It’s not getting any warmer out here!”
“You got it?” Brent said to Vickers.
The big guy nodded, but he did not look like he had it. His flesh looked like unbaked dough. The corner of his mouth was bright pink, as if he’d wiped blood from his lips.
Ian and Jamie were approaching.
“You boys ain’t got that truck loaded yet?” Ian called with a grin. He was shivering and his nose was running, but he was cheerful. Like Brent, the sunshine had invigorated him.
Jamie followed closely behind, his head ducked down against the wind. As the pair drew near, he broke away from the tall black man and circled around behind Vickers. He glanced at Brent from the corner of his eyes and gave a subtle nod. Brent saw a sliver of wood drop from his sleeve into the palm of his hand. It was about eight inches long, and narrowed to a deadly point.
Brent opened his mouth to warn Vickers, but before he could shout a “look out!” at the biker, Jamie stepped forward, palmed the man’s face with one hand, and thrust his wooden shiv into Vickers’ neck.
The attack was so quick, so unexpected, that no one reacted to it for several seconds. Vickers’ hands came up as Jamie stabbed him two- three- four times in rapid succession. Ian, still grinning at Brent, didn’t even seem to see it. Vickers’ hands fell as if in surrender. “Jesus Christ!” Brent exclaimed.
Jamie leapt back and dropped his weapon, putting his palms in the air. His right hand glimmered like he was wearing a red silk glove.
Gurgling, Vickers fell to his knees. Blood squirted from the side of his neck in vermillion arcs, gory death ejaculating on the pavement. Vickers fell forward onto his palms, head down, his face obscured by a curtain of hair.
Ian finally noticed his surrogate father’s death throes. His smile faded and he made an incoherent interrogative: “Whahhh?”
Vickers slid forward onto his stomach, arms twisted unnaturally to his sides. He kicked his legs like a dog dreaming of chasing cats.
The guards were surging forward, yelling, reaching for Jamie and Ian and Brent. Hands still raised, Jamie allowed two of the guards to seize him and drag him away. Ian cupped his hand over his mouth and bent to assist the fallen man. Vickers shuddered as a halo of blood slowly expanded around his head and shoulders.
Brent retreated several steps from the dying man as two of the guards pushed Ian aside and dropped to their knees beside Vickers. Ian’s feet tangled together and he fell as the guards began to devour the man. One of them lifted Vickers’ arm to its mouth and bit into his flesh just above the wrist. The other bent down and sank its teeth into the back of Vickers’ skull, twisting its head back and forth until a bloody chunk tore away. It sat back, eyes rolling in their sockets, and chewed on the steaming flesh, a long lock of gray streaked hair dangling from its mouth like a raccoon’s tail. Ian scrambled away, his eyes bulging.
The two guards had dropped their weapons when they lost control of their hunger. The rifles lay where they had slipped from their fingers, just a couple feet away. Brent eyed the weapons, sorely tempted to go for them, but most of the guards had managed to resist their craving, to maintain some degree of self-control. They had backed away, snarling like wolves, but they still had command of their reason. They kept their weapons trained on Brent and Ian. Brent had no doubt they would shoot if h
e lunged for the fallen rifles.
Cooley banged out of the trailer. “What the FUCK is going on out here?” the fat zombie bawled.
As if answering the creature, Jamie shouted, “I had to do it! I’m sorry, but I had to!” He was not looking at the fat deadhead lurching in their direction, however. He was looking at Brent and Ian, an almost childlike expression of petulance on his face. He was hanging from the hands of the guards who had seized him, his body limp, like a little kid throwing a fit in a department store. Shoulders hunched to his ears. Legs splayed out in front of him. “One of us had to go, you guys,” he said, “and it wasn’t going to be me!” He looked like he was ready to burst into tears.
“Fuck you!” Brent yelled. “He was already dying!”
Cooley swept by Brent like a cruise ship. “Here! Stop eating him! That’s not how we do it here!” Cooley yelled at the guards munching on Vickers.
One of the zombies who’d lost it, the one that was chewing on Vickers’ arm, turned toward Cooley and growled. There were bits of flesh stuck in the deadhead’s teeth. Brent saw it and tasted sour vomit.
“Don’t you growl at me, motherfucker!” Cooley hissed. The fat zombie pulled its sidearm from its holster and shot the deadhead in the forehead. It swiveled the weapon on the other one and shot it, too. Black blood and tissue fanned across the pavement, abstract sumi art. “We are not animals,” the Brobdingnagian ghoul declared.
No one moved. No one spoke. Vickers had quit quivering. The zombies who had fed on him lay across his body, just as still and lifeless as the man they were just chewing on.
“Take the meat away and have it processed,” Cooley said, holstering its weapon. “And put the roosters back in their cage.” It turned its furious gaze on Brent, jowls a-quiver. “I tried to do something nice for you boys. I thought I’d let you get some sunshine today. Well, I hope you enjoyed the fresh air, meat, because I swear to God you won’t ever breathe it again!”
20. Discord
Cattle (The Fearlanders) Page 11