Gasping, she felt her way through the doorway and down the corridor to the living room. The living room was pitch dark as well. Perry had retired for the night. She stumbled around in the dark, losing her bearings in the unfamiliar house. She banged her shin into the corner of the coffee table and a bolt of lightning shot up into her brain. In the back of her mind, she knew she was acting irrationally. Her waking dream with Aishani and the field of rotting limbs had tipped her over the edge into a bit of a panic attack -- not too surprising considering she had just come back from the dead -- but she couldn’t help herself. Something fell off the coffee table with a thump and she squatted down to see what it was, brushing her fingers over it.
Perry’s book.
“Soma?”
Perry.
Dim gold light filled the corridor, making it look like the entrance of a dragon’s hoard. The light brightened as Perry hurried down the corridor.
“I’m sorry,” she said, picking up Perry’s book and setting it back on the coffee table. It was a big book. Lonesome Dove, by Larry McMurtry. Her hands were shaking. “I dreamed… and then I got confused… I think I lost your page.”
“You all right?” he said, stepping into the living room. He was dressed in pajama bottoms, holding a saucer with a half-melted candle in the center of it. Its brilliant little flame danced a Can-can on the wick. She could smell the melted wax, the charred wick, the flame. His eyes glinted like coins in the light. It was all very vivid.
“I don’t know,” she said. She flopped down on the couch, head in her hands. “I dreamed about my daughter, and that was nice, and then it got weird, and I guess I freaked out a little. Perry, I want my family back!”
“I know you do,” Perry said. “I wish I could snap my fingers and whisk you away to them.”
“Me, too.”
“What we need is a pair of ruby slippers,” he said.
She laughed. “No teasing.”
“All right.”
He sat in the chair across from her, watching her quietly, waiting for her fit to pass. Finally, she looked up at him. “You know how to play gin rummy?”
He grinned. “I sure do!”
16
She noticed that dawn’s candy colored hues were peeking around the edges of the curtains and jumped in her seat. “It’s morning already?” she asked.
Perry looked toward the window, then back to his hand. “Yep.”
“I’m sorry, Perry. I didn’t mean to keep you up all night.”
“No big deal. I got a couple hours of rest. That’s all I really need.”
Her dream had only seemed to last a few minutes, but several hours had passed while she was semi-conscious. That was how it was for Resurrects, Perry informed her. Though dreams for the living lasted only moments in real time, they could seem to go on for hours. For the undead, it was just the opposite. Their minds, he theorized, worked more slowly in the meditative state that passed for sleep for them. A dream that seemed to last mere minutes for a Resurrect could eat up an entire night. He had read for an hour after Soma went to bed, then retired himself and was dreaming of boyish repasts when she woke him. “The fish were just starting to bite,” he teased her gently.
After that, they had played cards, but they had talked more than they had played. It was the easy conversation of two adults who are temperamentally compatible. By the time Soma noticed the rosy glow of daybreak limning the edges of the curtains, it felt as if she and Perry were old friends. They had talked about their families, the jobs they had held before the Phage, and shared several humorous anecdotes about themselves and their loved ones.
Perry was the middle child of three boys, he told her. His father had been a train mechanic, his mother a waitress. Perry had worked as a welder for Engram Barge Company with both his brothers until the Phage hit Illinois and forced him into a rather abrupt early retirement. He had married his high school sweetheart when she came up pregnant just after graduation. “Her folks weren’t too happy about that,” he said, “but what can you do? We were being careful.” But she had lost the baby shortly after the honeymoon, and they had put off trying again until they were more financially stable. The two of them were just starting to discuss giving it another try when the outbreak occurred.
“It’s probably a good thing we didn’t have any kids,” he said, though he did not sound as if he really believed it, not deep down where want trumped practicality. “I can’t imagine how awful it must be to lose a child to the Phage. Or worse, not knowing if they’re alive or dead at all. You must be going crazy.”
Her worry for her daughter was like a rat gnawing at her innards. She said as much and he nodded sympathetically.
“That’s what I figured,” he said. He discarded a three of clubs and waited for her to take her turn.
She drew a jack, added it to the pair she was holding in her hand and placed her set down on the coffee table.
“I’ll take you there, if you want,” Perry said suddenly, and she froze, gaping at him over her hand.
“What?”
He shrugged. “I have a truck. I’ll drive you to Brook… uh, what was the name again?”
“Brookville Lake,” Soma said.
“Yeah. I’ll drive you up there to Brookville Lake. We’ll see if your family’s still there.”
Soma placed her cards face down on the table in front of her. “Perry, you don’t have to do that,” she said.
“What ya gonna do? Walk there? I can’t let you do that. You’ll never make it. Might as well slit your wrists and jump in a shark tank.”
“I won’t let you endanger yourself like that,” Soma said. “Not over me. They might not even be there. They might…”
She couldn’t bring herself to say it: they might be dead.
He said it for her.
“They might be dead. They might have gone Home. They might even be like us. What do you plan to do if they’re not there? If they’re dead or they ran Home?”
Soma shook her head, looking down at the cards on the table. “I don’t know.”
Very tentatively, Perry said, “Would you consider… coming back with me?”
She thought about it for a couple minutes and then nodded. “I would consider it,” she said.
“The really tough question,” he went on, trying to conceal his pleasure, “is what you’re gonna do if they’re alive and well.”
“What?” she said, blinking up at him.
“It’s very possible they’re still alive. But, darlin’, you’re not. You’re not going to be able to stay with them. Our kind cannot be around their kind for long. We can fight the hunger for a little while, but not indefinitely, and you can still infect them. Most folk who are still alive are immune to the Phage, but not all of ‘em.”
“I hadn’t thought about that.”
“I’m not trying to rain on your parade, but I think you need to face facts. Realistically, it’s going to be tough to get there. It’s dangerous out there. The roads are bad. There are several tribes of Resurrects between here and there, and not all of them are friendly. Once we do get there, your family may be dead, undead, or they might have run Home. And they could very possibly be alive and just fine.”
“I know,” she said, putting her fingers to her temples. “Oh, it makes my head spin thinking about it!”
“Not knowing is probably the worst part,” he allowed.
“Yes.”
“We can head up there in a couple of days. Need to get some supplies first. Make sure we have plenty of gas and ammo. No telling what we’ll run into along the way.”
“What about your rabbits? Who’ll take care of them?”
“I got a buddy that’ll do it for me. Kid named Jake. He stops by every now and then. Hangs out. Borrows my books. He’ll do it, no problem. He lives up the road apiece. We’ll run up there today and ask him. I’ll kill some rabbits tonight, too. We can take ‘em to town to trade for fuel and ammunition.”
Morally, she felt she should try
to dissuade him. In just the two days since her awakening, she had run across a squad of gun happy survivalists and one very big and very bitey dog. She could not imagine the journey ahead would be any safer. She didn’t want to put this man’s life in danger, but his help would dramatically increase the odds of her making it all the way to Brookville Lake in one piece. In fact, she seriously doubted she could finish the journey without his help.
Still, she tried one more time to talk him out of it:
“Perry, I don’t want to put your life in danger.”
“What life? I’ve been dead for years.”
“I’m serious.”
“So am I,” he said. “I like you, Soma. I want to help you. Now, if you don’t care for my company, if the problem’s actually me…”
“It’s not you.”
“Then just say thanks and stop trying to talk me out of it. I spent my whole life in this shitty little town. My death, too! I feel like stretching my legs a little before I die again. Have an adventure. See what’s out there.”
“Okay,” Soma said. She smiled at him. “Thank you, Perry. Thank you so much.”
He grinned and ducked his head.
“Draw a card, lady. It’s your turn again.”
17
About midmorning, after they had eaten some breakfast (raw rabbit again), Perry pulled on his cowboy boots, checked his rifle, and told Soma it was time to go. Excited and a little scared, she put on her tennis shoes and joined him at the back door.
It was another beautiful late spring morning, the sky powder blue and near flawless, just a few hazy clouds drifting very high in the atmosphere, like white rafts on a faraway sea. As they crossed the back lawn to the garage, Soma asked Perry if he knew what the date was and he answered without hesitation: May 29.
“May twenty-ninth,” she repeated, smiling up into the sunshine.
A breeze stirred through her hair and she felt good, really good, for the first time since her awakening. The omnipresent pain had diminished to a faint throbbing, like the ache you get in your bones a couple of days before a bad storm. Her flesh was becoming more supple, her joints more limber. She decided she was probably still a bit high from the meat she had just eaten. She could feel the nourishment spreading through her body, almost as if her heart was pumping it through her veins like blood.
Perry grinned down at her. He had stuffed an old cowboy hat on his head and slid a pair of sunglasses over his eyes. When he looked down at her, she could see twin reflections of herself in the smoky lenses.
“You look like the Marlboro Man,” she laughed, and he chuckled along with her.
“That a good thing?”
“Yeah,” she admitted.
He looked up and away, pleased. “Good,” he said.
He unlatched the gate of the back fence, held up a hand. “Just a second. Let me check first.” He scanned their surroundings before he allowed her to step outside the yard, his head jerking back and forth. “It’s safe,” he said, and waved her after him. “Let’s go.”
She had always taken pride in her self-reliance, but it was a relief to lower her guard, to let someone else look out for her, someone bigger and stronger. And then she cautioned herself to be wary of that impulse. Dependency was a trap, especially for women. She had never followed Nandi around so obediently.
“So how far away does this Jake live?” she asked as she walked toward the garage.
“About five miles east of here. I ought to warn you about him, though. He’s kind of messed up. Physically, I mean. He didn’t fare as well as we did when he was a deadhead. He’s a little self-conscious about it so try not to stare.”
“I wouldn’t do that!” she protested.
“I know you wouldn’t do it on purpose,” Perry said. “But you ain’t seen him yet. Forewarned is forearmed.”
“All right.”
He helped her into the passenger seat of his truck. It was a high rider, a navy blue Ford F-150 with a lifted suspension. He shut the door, jogged around to the driver’s side and slid in behind the wheel. Propping his rifle against the seat in between them, he keyed the engine and backed from the garage.
They headed east, away from the interstate. It was not a smooth journey. The elements had hammered the blacktop like an angry giant, shattering it into geometric puzzle pieces. Grass had insinuated itself into the cracks, spreading the fragments further apart. As Soma jounced in her seat, trying to enjoy the scenery, Perry said, “Pretty soon all the roads are gonna be like wagon trails. Mother Nature is breaking them down as fast as we ever put ‘em up. The whole world’s going back to the way it used to be, like we were never here at all.”
The truth of his words was evident enough. Fields that had once hosted corn and wheat and soybean were waist high with wild grass and studded with several years’ worth of tree growth. Where the land had been wooded before the Phage, the forests had thickened, closing in to form shady arches over the road. The homes they passed were like islands in a sea of gently swaying vegetation. Many had begun to sag like tired old men. Some had collapsed or burned down or had been seized by leafy green fists of ivy. A few had trees growing up through the roofs, or growing on the roofs. None looked inhabited.
“Why don’t they try to keep up the roads?” Soma asked.
“Too many roads, not enough people,” Perry said. “The Phage killed billions. There weren’t many survivors. There’s not many like us, either. Deadheads who came back, I mean. Resurrects. Maybe we can organize if more of us wake up. Form a real government. Start rebuilding. For now, though…” He shrugged.
They drove past a small country school. The windows of the squat brick building were shattered, the playground equipment rusty and engulfed in vegetation.
“I went to grade school there,” Perry said as the building receded behind them. He smiled when she looked at him. “Told you I haven’t traveled much.”
“What’s the farthest you’ve gone from home?” Soma asked.
“Six Flags, once, when I was a kid. The one in Saint Louis. We caught a Cardinals game while we were there. Oh, and I’ve been to Nashville a couple times-- FUCK!”
Perry stomped on the brakes, putting a hand across her chest to keep her from bouncing off the dash.
Directly ahead, several zombies were trudging across the road, moving single file from one side to the other. There were six of them, men and women with pale gray flesh and tattered clothing. As the Ford’s tires squealed on the pavement, the revenants’ heads swiveled around. The zombies snarled and rushed at the Ford, lips peeled back from jagged teeth.
“Fuckin’ deadheads,” Perry growled, shifting the truck into reverse. Soma righted the rifle, which had fallen onto the floorboard, as Perry backed from their pursuers at speed.
He shifted into drive and steered around the tottering zombies. A couple of them swiped at the sides of the truck, groaning hoarsely. Their hands thumped against the sidewalls of the truck but found no purchase.
“Don’t worry. There’s not enough of them to pose a threat,” he said as they jolted in and out of the ditch. “Now, herds… herds you gotta watch out for. If they’re hungry, they’ll eat us the same as the living. Happened to some Catchers out on the other side of town. Elvis Smythe, Richard Neimeyer, Rainie Collins.”
Soma turned in her seat to watch the zombies go by.
“They were out on patrol one day last November, looking for Home Runners, and got their truck stuck in one of Old Man Hillenbrand’s fields,” Perry continued. “They were trying to get it out of the mud when a herd of deaders come on them. Judging by the tracks, there were probably fifty or sixty deadheads in that herd. Must have caught ‘em by surprise because they tried to hide in the truck rather than run.”
“What happened to them?”
He smiled grimly. “The herd ripped that truck apart like tinfoil around a baked potato. All that was left of them was bones and boots.”
“They’re still chasing us,” Soma said nervously, watching the gr
oup recede into the distance.
“They’ll do that,” Perry said. “They’ll follow as long as they hear the truck. They’ll forget all about us as soon as we’re out of earshot.”
Then they were gone. A curtain of woodland had fallen between them.
“There’s an unspoken rule about deadheads like that,” Perry said as he drove on. “We don’t kill them unless we have no other choice. You do what you gotta do if your back is to the wall. Otherwise, let ‘em go in peace. You never know if one of ‘em’s about to wake up. Any deadhead you put down is a potential Resurrect. It’s sort of like an abortion, if you think about it, killing one of them.”
Soma nodded. Tenderhearted by nature, she liked that rule, and intended to live by it as much as she could.
“Just, you know, try not to put yourself in a situation.”
“Got it.”
A few minutes later, Perry slowed down. He threw on his blinker -- “Habit,” he laughed when she glanced at the clicking indicator light -- and turned right onto a dirt road that was all but overrun by low forest growth. As they bounced down the rutted dirt road, Perry said, “This is what we call ‘out where the hoot owls fuck the chickens’!”
“I’ll say,” Soma commented, trying to hang on.
Jake’s home was a small log cabin at the end of a quarter mile of bone rattling hills and dips. If some strange man had taken her out here before the Phage, she might have entertained the notion that he intended to do something terrible to her and bury her remains in the woods. Of course, if Perry were inclined to do something nasty like that to her, he would have done it already. No need to hide the body.
Towering oak, box elder and pine trees shaded the cabin. Some of the trees were so tall and thick at the base they could be no less than two, maybe three hundred years old. There were several ATVs in the front yard, parked haphazardly. A johnboat sat on a pair of sawhorses, turned upside down so it didn’t collect rainwater. In the side lawn, clean undies flapped gently on the clothesline. A muddy camo truck with a roll bar and spotlights was parked near the porch.
Soma (The Fearlanders) Page 11