Cattle (The Fearlanders)

by Joseph Duncan

  “What do you want?” Brooks snapped.

  “I need to speak to Cooley,” Brent said.

  “What do you need to speak to Cooley about?” Brooks demanded.

  “I have important information he needs to know,” Brent said.

  “What kind of information?”

  “Something he needs to hear.”

  Brooks squeezed his eyes shut, struggling to be patient. He still looked angry when he opened them again. “Why don’t you tell me? I’ll pass it along if it’s something I think he needs to hear.”

  “No offense, but I’d like to tell Cooley myself,” Brent said.

  “No offense, but how about I kick your ever lovin’ ass?” Brooks said.

  Brent crossed his arms and tried to appear imperturbable. The vein in his right temple was kicking. A nerve twitched in the side of his neck.

  Brooks growled. “Cooley’s not here right now. He goes home at six. We do have lives, you know, even if we’re not, technically speaking, still alive anymore.”

  “It’s a matter of life and death,” Brent said.

  “Whose life and death?”

  “Everyone’s,” Brent said. “You need to go get him. It won’t wait until tomorrow.”

  As Brooks mulled it over, Harold looked from Brent to his trainer and back again. Zombie-Harold did not seem to know quite what sort of expression to put on his face. Surprise, anxiety, consternation and curiosity flitted across his features in rapid succession.

  Up close, Brent could see that death, and the Phage, had left their stamp on his friend’s features. Harold’s skin was as pale as curdled milk, and seemed very thin and limp, crinkling in the places where it folded—the eyes, the lips, the nostrils. His complexion had once been ruddy, but his healthy Irish blush had gone from pink to a faint blue tint. He was going to look like Brooks one day, Brent thought, his flesh as gray and crenelated as tree bark. Already, his eyes had grown slightly hazy, and his teeth seemed more prominent, and the coppery hair on his chin was tacky with dried phlegm.

  “You know what Cooley will do to you if this is bullshit,” Brooks said warningly.

  “I know what he’ll do,” Brent said.

  Brooks looked him up and down, still pretending to be considering the request, but Brent knew that he had already decided to go and fetch Cooley. Brent had never given the guards trouble, had always been respectful, and that’s what decided the matter for the zombie.

  Brooks looked at Harold. “Keep an eye on him while I walk over to Cooley’s place?”

  “You’re actually going to fetch him?” Harold said, surprised.

  Brooks shrugged. “I don’t think the guy’s lying. Besides, I wouldn’t mind a bit of fresh air. The smell of all this meat drives me crazy.”

  Harold nodded. “Sure. Yeah, that’s fine. There anything else we gotta do tonight besides watch ‘em?”

  “No. That’s it until shift change.”

  “Sure, then. Go ahead. I’ll be fine.”

  Brooks turned to Brent one last time. “You want to get prayed up, meat. Even if you’re telling the truth, Cooley might just put you out to pasture. He don’t like to be bothered at home.”

  “He’ll want to know this,” Brent said assuredly, and Brooks nodded and started away.

  Brent felt faint with relief. That wasn’t an exaggeration. As he watched Brooks recede down the guard walk, Brent’s thoughts went all fuzzy and far away. He forced himself to breathe. After a minute or two, the world swam back into focus.

  “You’re going to get yourself killed, kiddo,” Zombie-Harold said. He spoke from the corner of his mouth, not looking at Brent directly.

  Brent wasn’t sure how much time they had, so he got right to the point. “I need you to help me escape,” Brent whispered.

  Even as he said it, he worried that he was making a mistake, that Harold was more zombie now than friend. He remembered what Muriel had said and wondered if he was seeing his old friend where there was just another flesh-eating zombie staring out of his old friend’s eyes now. He hoped he was doing the right thing. He hoped his old friend was still his old friend, but he wouldn’t know for sure until Harold replied.

  Harold chuckled. “What do you think I’ve been trying to do?” he asked. “It’s taken me months to convince Cooley to give me a job here. He was afraid I’d do exactly what I’m doing now.”

  “Help me escape?” Brent asked.

  Harold grinned and nodded.

  “There’s a key box in Hinkle’s office,” Brent said. “Inside it, under a label that says S. R., is a key. It’s the key to the stockroom doors over in the women’s section of the supermarket.”

  “Uh huh? And what am I supposed to do after I get the key?”

  “Give it to me,” Brent said.

  “And then what?”

  Brent took a breath and told Harold the rest of his plan. “The kid you guys brought in a few days ago—“

  “Them guys,” Harold interjected.

  “Huh?”

  “Not you guys,” he said, looking at Brent from the corner of his eyes. “Them guys. I’m not like them.”

  Brent smiled. He hooked his fingers in the chain link, wishing he could embrace his old friend, zombie or no zombie. “Those guys,” he amended. “The kid said there’s an enormous herd of deadheads headed right for us. According to him, they’re just a few days away now. Biggest herd he ever saw. He said the herd stretched as far as he could see, all the way to the horizon. He said they destroyed a facility like this one in Missouri, just rolled over it like an avalanche, ate everything in sight.”

  “Jiminy Cricket!” Harold hissed.

  Brent nodded. “I’m going to warn Cooley about them. Convince him they’re coming. And while the zombies are busy preparing for the herd, which is what I presume they’re going to do, we’re going to escape in the confusion.”

  “That’s a terrible plan,” Harold said.

  “It’s the only plan I have,” Brent said. “The storeroom lets out onto the loading dock in the back of the store. The loading bay is outside the fences. If we can get through that storeroom door we’re home free.”

  Harold sighed, thinking it over. Finally, he spoke. “I have a truck gassed up. That’s what I’ve been doing while I’ve been waiting to get a job here. I got a truck running and managed to steal enough gas from all the derelict cars here in town to fill up the tank, plus more. If we can get you out of here and to that truck, we can ride in style all the way Home. Be there in a day or two.”

  It was too good to be true. Brent felt like weeping.

  “I’ll park it on the corner at the end of the alley behind the super market tonight after I get off work,” Harold said. “I’ll try to get that key tomorrow when I come on duty. I’ll have to be real sly. That office is Hinkle’s precious. He’s a nasty little Golum, he is. But I’ll try. If Cooley believes you about that herd, this place will be a madhouse while they get prepared. The mindless ones will eat Resurrects. Especially fresh ones like me. That herd will be just as dangerous to the zombies here in town as they are to you meat.”

  Brent nodded. “That’s what I was counting on.”

  They were quiet for a beat.

  “I really missed you,” Brent whispered.

  “I’m not the me I used to be,” Harold said, and he looked down at his hands. His left hand, Brent saw, was missing all its digits but a thumb and finger. The wounds were black and crusty looking.

  “You’re you,” Brent said, and he nodded emphatically when Zombie-Harold glanced at him. “You’re definitely you.”

  Harold opened his mouth to speak, but Brent saw Brooks reenter the guard walk. He flashed his friend a look of warning. Harold turned as the zombie approached.

  “Let him out,” Brooks said, waving toward the padlock with his nightstick. “Cooley wants to see him.”

  28. Cooley

  “You want me to take him out to Cooley’s trailer?” Harold asked.

  Brooks shot his trainee a suspicio
us look. Everyone knew that Harold and Brent had been friends before the Reapers caught them. It was not a terribly suspicious look, but it was there, a questioning glint.

  “No,” Brooks said. “You stay here. I’ll escort him.”

  Harold shrugged. “You’re the boss.” He pulled his keyring off his belt and bent to the padlock. He had to clutch the lock between the two digits of his left hand like a crab claw to work it, but the clasp popped open, and he pulled the chain from the door frame and yanked the door open. “Out, meat,” he said.

  Brent cautiously stepped out, like a timid animal that had been freed after a lifetime of being caged. It was a bit of a put on, but Brent had learned early on that the guards were much less apt to be brutal if you acted fearful around them.

  “Come on,” Brooks said impatiently, brandishing his nightstick. “No funny business.”

  Brent shook his head quickly and started up the guard walk.

  “I hope you weren’t just pulling our legs,” Brooks said as he fell into step behind Brent. “Cooley wasn’t too happy to put on his boots and come down here. You pull his leg, he’s likely to pull yours… right off.”

  “I told you I ain’t lying,” Brent said huffily, and the guard poked him in the back with the stick.

  “Don’t get mouthy, meat,” Brooks said.

  Brent pressed his lips together.

  As they traversed the guard walk, Brent glanced into the women’s quarters. Many of the women were bedded for the night, but a few were still awake. Their worried faces turned to follow Brent’s progress as whispered gossip stirred through the room. “They’re taking Brent out,” he heard someone murmur, and then another: “Where are they taking Brent?” And another: “What did he do?” He wasn’t interested in that, however. He was looking for the doors to the stockroom.

  They were on the far side of the room, near a line of cooler doors, which were also chained and padlocked. They were next to the old bakery department, like Muriel had said, a pair of double doors on swinging hinges, with two mirrored windows and a chain looped through the door handles, locking them together. The doors were just a few feet from the partition that separated the men and women. His view of them was partially obstructed by cubicle walls, but there did not seem to be anything near them that would impede his escape, when the time came.

  At the sight of those doors, his heart skipped a beat, and Brent had to fight down a sudden impulse to break away from his escort and run. He hadn’t realized how badly he wanted to escape. He clenched his jaw and squeezed his hands into fists, wrestling with the compulsion. He wasn’t going to escape that way! What was he planning on doing—dash from the building while screaming and waving his arms over his head? They’d beat him half to death about five seconds after catching him.

  The compulsion passed, leaving him shaken and slightly nauseated.

  They passed through the interior door into Hinkle’s little office. Hinkle was home for the night, but a stocky female zombie was manning the desk. She raised an eyebrow, looking Brent up and down as he entered the lobby in his undershorts. She was an ugly woman with flat, jowly features and unkind eyes. There was what looked to be an old gunshot wound in her neck.

  “He need a coat?” she croaked. “It’s nippy outside.”

  “Nope,” Brooks said. “He won’t be out there long. Let him shiver. This was his idea anyway.”

  “Cooley might not like that,” she said. “Don’t want the studs getting sick. They’re hard to come by.”

  “Well, fuck it. Get him some clothes then.”

  Brent waited while the female zombie rose with a groan and walked into the back office. Her hair was short and the exit wound of her injury was visible on the back of her neck. She returned with sweats and a pair of shoes. Neither fit all that well, but he was grateful to put the clothes on. He could feel the night’s cold radiating from the glass panes of the door.

  “Hurry up!” Brooks snarled impatiently.

  Brent tied the sneakers, stood, and allowed Brooks to push him through the front doors.

  A chill early spring wind whipped through his hair and clothes the moment he stepped out the door. The sky overhead was featureless and close, pregnant with swollen clouds. It looked as if it were going to storm soon. The atmosphere seemed charged with electricity. He sucked in a deep breath of the cold air, feeling instantly invigorated.

  “Come on,” Brooks said, prodding him in the back again.

  Flickering barrel fires and a single set of electric floodlights, trained on the front of the supermarket, were the only illumination. Brooks pointed with his nightstick which direction Brent should go, but Brent knew where Cooley’s trailer was. He checked out the fences and the guards patrolling it as he circled around the front of the building and climbed the steps of Cooley’s trailer. He waited as Brooks leaned forward and tapped on the door with his club.

  “Enter,” a muffled voice called.

  Brooks twisted the knob and pulled the door open. He waved Brent inside.

  The amber glow of incandescent lights brightened the trailer’s interior. Brent took in the room with one sweep of the eye, surprised by its orderliness. The interior had been stripped of its original furnishings and decorated in wood paneling and blue carpet. There were filing cabinets, a compact refrigerator, a tan sofa and a large sandalwood desk in the center of the room. An electric heater hummed quietly in the corner, its heating elements glowing red. On the back wall were two large whiteboards on which hundreds of numbers were written in small block print. Next to the numbers were dates. Brent realized the numbers represented the female internees, and the dates were their estimated due dates. Some of the numbers had red checkmarks beside them—one, two, or three of them.

  Cooley sat behind the desk, his mammoth body cocked back in his chair. The interior of the trailer smelled strongly of the cigar that jutted from the corner of the zombie’s fleshy mouth, sending up puffs of smoke like a tiny chimney.

  “Come in,” Cooley said to Brent, his eyes small and dark and piggish. “Sorry I didn’t come inside to talk to you. I can’t stand the smell of the place.”

  “That’s all right,” Brent said. “It does smell bad.”

  “Oh, it’s not the stink of your filth and shit that bothers me,” Cooley said with a faint smile. “It’s the smell of your flesh. It’s hard for me to think when I’m around you. It’s maddening.”

  Brent didn’t know how to reply to that.

  “Brooks said you have something important to tell me. A matter of life and death, he said. Concerning all of us.”

  “Yes,” Brent said.

  “Well, go on. I came. Speak.”

  Brent took a breath and launched into his story. He told Cooley all that the kid had told him. It did not take long, despite the importance of it.

  Cooley tapped his cigar into a large glass ashtray when he had finished speaking. “Are you certain he was telling you the truth?” he finally asked.

  “Pretty certain,” Brent said. “I don’t know why he would lie about such a thing.”

  “We’ve had herds move through here before,” Cooley said. “It’s one of the drawbacks of being so near the river. They come across the bridge, which acts as a funnel, concentrating them into a tighter group. They do more damage when they’re packed more closely together.”

  Brent nodded. He had seen such things himself.

  “They’ve never been much of a problem for us. We just batten down the hatches and wait for them to pass, or shoot them if their numbers aren’t too great. We eat them, too, you know. But a group this size…”

  “Max said they tore the place apart.”

  “And, of course, we’re all in this together,” Cooley suggested, looking at Brent shrewdly.

  “Yes, we are,” Brent said earnestly.

  “Why did you take so long to bring this to my attention?” Cooley asked.

  “I was afraid,” Brent answered, and it was true enough to sound genuine.

  Cooley sat up i
n his chair. “You have nothing to fear from me so long as you behave and do your job, uh… what was your name again?”

  “Brent.”

  “Brent. We all have a place in this new world, Brent. Do you think I like being this way? I used to be a high school principle. I loved my job. I cherished my wife and kids. My life was good. It was ordered. But then the Phage came and I got sick and died. I came back, of course. I resurrected, but I wasn’t me anymore. I was a mindless monster, just pain and hunger and anger. I was like that for two years, a lost soul wandering a dying country. I was finally reborn in the middle of a small herd in an empty field two hundred miles from home, eating the rotting guts of a dead raccoon. But I was me again. I remembered myself. And I wanted what I had before: a life, a home, order. We can all have those things, Brent, but it won’t be like it used to be. It can’t be.”

  “I know that now, sir,” Brent said. “I didn’t before, when I first got here, but I understand now, and I’m… happy.”

  That sounded like the lie it was, and Cooley seemed to take note of it and file it away for future reference, but the gargantuan zombie chose not to comment. Perhaps he thought Brent was lying to himself as much as to his captor.

  “Thank you, Brent,” he said instead. “I’d like to reward you for bringing this information to my attention. Is there anything you’d like? Within reason, mind you! We reward team players here, and you’ve definitely demonstrated that you wish to be a team player.”

  Brent thought about asking to be set free—strictly as a joke—but he didn’t think Cooley had ever had much of a sense of humor. He could definitely picture the fat, dour man helming a high school. His students must have been terrified.

  “I can’t think of anything off hand,” Brent said.

  That seemed to please the monstrous revenant. He crushed out his cigar. “I’ll have to send a team of Reapers to verify this boy’s story, of course, but once I’ve verified it, you think of something nice you’d like to have, you just send word to me.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “We survive this mega-herd headed our way, I’ll be sure you get it.”