The Queen of the Dead

by Vincenzo Bilof

  VEGA

  It was comforting to see all the guns again, despite how many they managed to pick up along the way. It wasn’t so comforting to see that John’s condition was getting worse.

  They packed into a school counseling center that seemed empty. There weren’t any cars in the parking lot, so it was safe to guess they’d find it devoid of unwanted zombies. Inside, Vincent took Jeremy on a quick search through the building while everyone else plopped into office chairs.

  John’s lips were turning blue and his skin looked waxy. He had a hard time keeping up, and he was fading in and out. He mumbled incoherent things Vega assumed were apologies to a woman.

  She immediately retrieved the 20” Larue Tactical 7.62 semi-auto rifle from one of the duffel bags. A gas-powered skull blaster that fit neatly into her arms.

  The shithead detective was looking pretty bad, too. He claimed it was nothing more than a cold, but his eyes were looking a bit red around the edges. He and the redheaded chick in the bunny pajamas sat apart from the rest of the group.

  The priest stood near her and John, while the crazy-ass general sat by himself and mumbled.

  “I want to help,” the priest said.

  “Keep praying,” Vega said while watching John’s eyes slowly find the spaces between Vega and the priest, until he looked upon the thick-shouldered, square-jawed Father Joe.

  “Last rites would be great,” John croaked.

  “Alright Father, question of the day,” Vega began, “what would Jesus do? He cured leprosy and all, so maybe if you sprinkle some holy water on John’s head, he’ll be cured. Like Pinocchio or something.”

  “If only it was that easy,” Father said. “Are you mocking me, or do you really want to know?”

  “I’m ready,” John Charles said. “Take care of me. Please.”

  “You can still hold a rifle,” Vega said. “You can pull a trigger. When the time comes, I’ll do what needs to be done.”

  She wanted the priest to challenge her, but he said nothing. Griggs had something to say, like always.

  “This has been fun,” he said, “I mean, golly gee, a swell time. Popcorn and circus rides. I’ve gone as far as I’m going.”

  “That’s the best news I’ve heard all day,” Vega said. It was mostly true, considering she was doing all she could to keep herself awake and food in her stomach. Her bell had been rung pretty good by Crater, and by all those zombies she wasted when she was chasing after Shanna in the street. Staying awake was harder than killing a slow-moving target, but she had to keep it together. Griggs was good with his gun, but she had enough of him.

  “You guys have been a lot of fun,” he continued, and wrapped his arm around the redhead’s waist. “I got what I wanted.” He seemed to be convincing himself as he looked at the floor; he was disappointed and she half-wondered why, but then realized she could care less.

  Griggs walked away from them with Mina in tow. Just like that. The voice of reason was gone. He saved her life, and she still didn’t want to thank him.

  “You’re a cute couple,” Vega said. “You guys about to make another movie together? Just keep that gun of yours holstered so you don’t blow her damn head off.”

  No remarks. No last words. Good for him.

  “Look,” Father began, “thank you for trusting us and taking us in. I appreciate it, but I can’t be empty-handed. I hate to beg, but I was out there trying to find supplies, or something or someone who’d be willing to help. I made a promise I intend to keep.”

  “To God?” Vega mocked him. He didn’t seem like a priest. He looked like he’d rather be hanging out in a bar after a hard day working outside with his bare hands.

  “To a few people who’re waiting for me across the street,” he answered. “At the retirement home. I found guns, the general, Mina, and now it’s all gone.”

  Vega chuckled. “Sorry to get my hands in your pot of gold. That’s quite a misfit crew you assembled. A porn star, a lunatic, and then there’s you… with some guns. Going to save the world?”

  “Those things wanted nothing to do with Mina,” Father said. “She’s something special, I think. I don’t know what, but she has a way about her.”

  “Yeah, she likes to open her legs,” Vega said. “That’s good enough for her buddy.”

  “He’s telling the truth,” the general looked up. “We walked right through a crowd of those bastards because they were afraid of us. That woman scared something fierce into ‘em. By God, something fierce.” He rubbed his knuckles. “I can hear it calling me and I can’t sit here. Been waiting to get back out into the shit and save these people. Help them. Ain’t nobody can do it but me.”

  The old man was getting antsy. What did she get herself into with these people? The priest was worried about something, and the crazy old man’s eyes moved as fast as his hands.

  “Hold your horses,” Vega said. “We’re not exactly pen pals just yet, so before anyone wants to guilt-trip me into fighting another battle for them, we need to accept that straying from the path got this man hurt.” She pointed to John Charles. “Father, you don’t know what we’re about… we saw you with the duffel bags and the detective has a hard-on for the girl.”

  The priest smiled. “I didn’t mean to presume. We don’t know each other, and because I’m wearing the collar means I must be a nice guy, right? Let’s start over: Hi. My name’s Joe, and I hope you have a charitable ear. No. That’s not right. Let me try again. Hi. My name’s Joe, and I really hoped those guns could help me out.”

  “Maybe it’s best for us to keep running from place to place, each time arguing and waiting for it to crumble over our heads,” the general nodded cynically. “A couple more people die. Run around and find more survivors. Hide. Die. Trying to stay organized won’t work. You have to be willing to spill your own blood to kill as much as you can. You can’t kill an idea. You can’t kill death.”

  “Stop right there,” Vega said. “Let me re-introduce myself: Hi. I’m Vega. Go fuck yourselves.”

  The priest sighed. “It’s pointless to argue with a woman with a very big gun. You could’ve taken the guns and the woman, but you brought us here with you. I told you this place was safe. We’ve helped each other.”

  Vega slumped into a chair of her own. “Safe? Safe from what? Those things out there? We might not be safe from each other.”

  Exhaustion, her frayed nerves, her headache; running and shooting, running and shooting, running and shooting.

  The last thing she needed around her was a priest. It was like he could see right into her soul, a power every priest seemed to possess.

  Vincent and Jeremy were back. She would let them do what they wanted, but she already knew her next move. Selfridge seemed far away. Traverse and whatever secret he held—the entire human race, both dead and alive, stood between her and the ghostly target with all their lusts, all their needs.

  “What’s up?” Vincent asked. “Where’s the party?”

  The general laughed. “Party? You wanna party when there’s a war going on?”

  Vincent ignored him. “Where’s my best friend?”

  Vega wanted to see the look on his face. “Who knows? Took his woman and left.”

  Vincent chuckled. “Points a gun at me and walks away. Good for him.”

  Jeremy swallowed a gulp of air and took a step back from Vincent. The guy didn’t know what he got himself into. Being rescued wasn’t what it was cut out to be.

  “He killed Stacy,” Jeremy said. “She was bit, but we don’t know for sure what happens. We just don’t know. That guy’s a fucking murderer, man.”

  “What’s your point,” Vega asked, “you going to do something about it?”

  “I think he’s trying to figure this out,” Father Joe said. “We believe someone who’s bit turns, but that doesn’t explain why they stay away from me, or Mina.”

  “This ain’t no flu bug,” Vincent said. “Ain’t no bug want to make people eat each other.”

  “I al
ready told you what it is,” the general added his two cents.

  That was it. That was enough. They were going to sit and argue this crap until the end of time, but it wouldn’t make a difference. Everyone was a damn philosopher.

  “I don’t give a shit!” Vega stopped them.

  Their eyes focused on her.

  “You want to go get Griggs and take care of it, that’s between the two of you,” she said to Jeremy. “Having these talks over and over again doesn’t get us anywhere.”

  They all seemed to look at each other for the first time. The humming electricity borne from a power grid that hadn’t yet been turned off didn’t belong. They were pale, forlorn shapes splattered in blood and dirt. Their faces were caked with ash; their shoulders sagged beneath the terrible weight of survival in a world where everyone they knew was gone. They were gory strangers who’d stepped out of the abattoir that their reality had been reduced to.

  Vincent’s empire had been reduced to nothing. Vega never had a permanent home. The general was a bum. They didn’t grow broad-shouldered, Mickey Rourke-Mexican crossbreeds in the convent, so the priest had his own story, and like every good Catholic, his own guilt. Jeremy might have a lawn to mow and dogs to let out, but he was the only one among them who didn’t fit. As for John Charles, he was being chased by ghosts straight into the arms of death.

  Covered in the blood of the dead and the living, they were the survivors, when so many others were gone. Good people. Taxpayers and people who watched reality TV shows and had barbecues on all the right summer holidays with beer, family, and a pool. People with diapers to change and family reunions to attend. People with something to lose.

  “He just fucking shot her in the face,” Jeremy said quietly. “I know it was a bad idea, the party I mean, but… it should’ve been me.”

  Father Joe put a hand on his shoulder. Ever the healer, like any good priest. More silence. Jeremy sniffled and adjusted his glasses. The general’s leg pounded up and down, up and down. Vincent stood there, waiting for someone to say something important.

  “I don’t have a whole lot of time,” John Charles looked up at them. “I’d like to do what I can to help.”

  What could he do? He could fight. That’s what he wanted. What any soldier would want.

  It was out of her hands. She was never any kind of leader, but it seemed like the mantle of leadership had been draped over her shoulders. Bob would know what to say. Maybe something along the lines of: “Let’s kick some ass and collect our beer money.”

  “Father here would like some guns,” Vega explained. “He’s thinking about a finder’s fee for keeping ‘em warm for us. He and the general want to be heroes and save some lives.”

  “Is it on the way to the base?” Vincent asked. “They can roll with us. Anybody who’s survived this long knows how to keep shit together.”

  “They’re not coming with us,” Vega said.

  All eyes were on her.

  “I’m not giving up,” she said. “This is a war like I’ve never seen. Something nobody’s seen before. It’s not two armies, or even two ideas. It’s not us against terrorists. No bad guys. Just the living and the dead.” Her head was confused. Nothing made sense anymore. She couldn’t remember a time when she didn’t have a headache, or she wasn’t sweaty, or covered in blood.

  She and Vincent were two people who’d been fighting as far back as they could remember, and this was their hell. Their struggles against themselves would never yield a winner, and this conflict was no different. There was only one way it would end.

  “I don’t want to drag anyone else into this,” Vega said. “We’re all living in our own nightmares, and I don’t need to invite you in. I don’t need to know any of you to keep doing what I do. I’ve never been much of a team player.”

  No more blood on her hands.

  ***

  She could sit in the silence forever. Watching through a window, explosions adding temporary color to an otherwise colorless sky. The window wasn’t secured against the dead, but Vega didn’t feel unsafe; she didn’t care. She was content to sit on the floor in a corner of the office and do nothing, to feel the pain in her bones, to stare at the slow burn.

  Better to soak in the quiet, let her hands rest on her thighs, lean back without thinking, and her finger on the trigger of a gun.

  The door to the office opened and closed behind her. She knew who it was without turning around.

  “Another counseling session?” she asked.

  Vincent ignored the question. “Gave a couple guns, sent them on their way. Jeremy went with them. The priest said something about a battle-axe, and the guy was all ears. Didn’t know how to use a gun.”

  “It’s not a bad thing to choose how we die, is it?” Vega wondered.

  “You think we get a choice?”

  “No. I don’t.”

  “The priest bothered you.”

  The treetops outside swayed in the darkness, thick shadows in the apocalyptic glow.

  “Me too,” he said. “Funny thing is, I ain’t never been too religious, but I respect it. One thing I learned from my Momma: taking the Lord’s name in vain meant an ass-whuping that would turn my black ass white.”

  It took a second for Vega to chuckle. “That almost… didn’t make sense.”

  “I know,” he said.

  How good was it to laugh again? She tried to remember the last time she laughed, and remembered hugging Bob after slaughtering a horde of those dead fuckers outside of the asylum before Crater was graciousness enough to open the doors. Bob had blood in his beard.

  “Still wanna go see the Wizard?” Vincent asked.

  “We’re not in Kansas, Toto,” Vega said. “Just us now, partner.”

  “They’re fighting across the street. Getting themselves killed trying to save each other. I guess we did the same thing.”

  “We saved Stacy to get her killed. John’s fading, and Jeremy’s out there… I’d say it was worth it.”

  He sat down on the desk beside her and looked through the window.

  “You see what I see?” he asked, his voice low as if acknowledging the peace borne of silence.

  “I don’t know if there’s anything to see,” she whispered. “This is a bad reality show and the cameras keep rolling. It’s funny, you know, people like action movies, they like killing and violence and war. This was the only way it could end.”

  “It had to end?”

  “I guess not,” Vega replied. “I’ve been a fighter since I was a little girl. I moved here from Spain after my father was killed, and I used to beat the shit out of American boys and girls. Didn’t have many friends because I didn’t want ‘em. Didn’t want to join a gang; got a lot of invites.” She chuckled at the memory. “Tried out for soccer once and beat up the captain in my first practice. So I’ve always been like this. This is me. A few hours ago, I had the genius idea that maybe it didn’t have to be that way anymore, that I could save a little girl and… I don’t know what else after that. Nobody else has to follow my road.”

  Vincent sat down next to her on the floor and rested his gun against the wall.

  “I didn’t invite you to sit close,” she told him. “You smell like ass and church.”

  “You’re used to me by now,” Vincent said.

  “Maybe not.”

  “You know me. I’m that nigger trying to keep his business together, but it’s not there to keep. No different than the Wall Street white boys who’re putting bullets into their heads right now, because they worked their whole lives for something that ain’t there. Everything I worked for might be gone, but I’m still here, and I worked my ass off to be here, to stay alive.”

  “You mean you didn’t do it for the money?”

  “Of course I did. Enough is never enough. If you find enough, you might as well die, just like Wall Street. Money is like oxygen, but I wasn’t always breathing. I never blamed nobody for the way I come up; my Momma did right with four boys. She was a survivor. I l
ike to think I’m like her. Brothers need me to keep their shit together so they can breathe, so they can get the oxygen, and I take care of it.”

  “They’re all dead, so now what?”

  “I’m still taking care of somebody,” he said.

  “Bullshit. You want to be such a nice guy, but people get killed with your guns. I’m not that dickhead’s biggest fan, but Griggs had a point about you.”

  “And he knew what I would say back. The price of business. Man who makes the coffee don’t care if you burn your tongue, long as you pay him. Man who comes up with new potato chips with chemicals and shit, don’t care if you get a heart attack. You gotta be a criminal to make it to the top, but the rules apply to only a few people. Always been that way.”

  “I don’t need to hear this crap. You said you were still taking care of someone, but you’re doing a shitty job.”

  “You won’t let me.”

  “No wife, no kids running around anywhere?” she asked.

  “Does it matter?”

  Her automatic response didn’t appear, but she knew what it was. There was no playing hard to get; if she trusted this man with her life, she trusted him with her flesh. The blood on his rain poncho had been shed by her hands, too.

  This moment was safe. This moment was real. For just these few breaths in time, she could forget about bullets and violence, cannibalism and ghosts. If she surrendered and broke herself down for him, the nightmare would fade.

  She wanted it. Needed it more than she ever needed it before. Just to have his hands on her, to let her feel something else besides anger, fear, or sorrow.

  “I don’t play games,” she said. “I want to be held. I want arms wrapped around me, and I want to be told everything’s going to be okay when I know it won’t be. I want my body to feel alive.”

  He threw his arm around her shoulder and brought her close. He didn’t smell at all; she grew used to him a long time ago, and he kept his shit together. He knew who he was and he lived it. He protected her when he didn’t have to, and he fought when he didn’t have to. There was more to him than he let on, but she didn’t care, nor did she want to guess. He could remain a mystery until he died; his touch was all she needed from him. Hide from the gunfire and the blood, slip into human flesh and experience the needs of the living. There wasn’t anyone who could rescue her; she was always alone.