by James Gurley
“How did you manage to build an IED with a timer, and before you say from books, you don’t learn that kind of skill from books. I saw a few IEDs in Afghanistan, and that was an expert job.”
Reed shook his head. “It’s not important.”
Jake pointed his index finger at Reed and cocked his head. “I think it is. You build bombs, you reload cartridges, you hotwire motorcycles – that seems strange for a high school science teacher. Just who the hell are you?”
“I’m Alton Reed, science teacher.”
Jake shook his head. “No, you’re more than that. No more secrets between us.”
Reed sighed. “I taught science in San Manuel like I said. When things fell apart, I went to one of the FEMA camps in Phoenix. It was … less than I had hoped. Food was rationed, gangs ran wild, but the worst were the summary executions. If someone got sick, for any reason, the soldiers simply shot them and dragged away the body. Anyone caught stealing, hoarding, or trying to escape were shot as well. We were prisoners and they were the wardens. I heard about the military recruiting people for a special project and figured anything was better than languishing in the camp. I volunteered. The idea was to infiltrate uncontrolled areas, report on any activity, and if possible, recruit suitable people to help establish safe zones. They sent me back here because I knew the area.”
Jake was floored. His anger coiled inside ready to explode. “A spy? You’re a damned spy.”
Reed shrugged. “Of sorts. An A-10 spotted your canyon on a flyover, and they asked me to investigate. I saw how well you had prepared and thought you might prove useful. I started the fire in the school hoping you would come.”
“So you weren’t just killing zombies.”
“Oh, I wanted to kill zombies all right. That part was no lie, but I also needed to see how you would react.”
“If I hadn’t helped you?”
Reed shrugged again. “Then you probably weren’t the man we wanted.”
Jake released his anger, laughed, and took a swig of whiskey. “I’m still not.”
“I think you are. You have the skills, and even if you pretend you don’t, I know you care about people. You’ve proven that. You were willing to risk everything to rescue Jessica and me.”
Had he? Had he come back for them or just for his ranch? Whatever his reasons, he wasn’t going to give Reed the satisfaction of thinking he was right. “I was after Levi. He needed to die.”
“If you insist. Still, you could have killed him without rescuing us. It would have been quicker and safer for you.”
He decided to change the subject. “Did the military teach you to build bombs?”
“They taught me a lot of things. One of them was how to read people. I taught kids, so I was pretty good at reading people already. They taught me what to look for in the particular kind of person we needed to help rebuild.”
Jake shook his head. “I’m not him.”
“Jake, there are thousands of people in camp all over the country with no place to go. They’re restless, half starving, and they’re giving up hope. Suicides are up twenty percent. The cities are too dangerous for anyone to live in. Pacification, as the army calls their zombie killing expeditions, is going slow. They’re too spread out. Splitting the survivors up into smaller groups, maybe fifty or sixty people each, is our only hope. They can become self sufficient until the military can complete its zombie operations.”
Jake raised the bottle of whiskey and shook it at Reed. The liquor sloshed around. Some of it splashed out of the bottle onto his hand. “And you think I want to babysit a bunch of survivors.” He licked the spilled whiskey from his hand.
“Yes, I do. For years, you showed people how to survive with your website. You’re ex-law enforcement and ex-military. You’ve got a lot you can teach them – how to shoot, how to farm, how to survive. Why not put it into practice?”
The idea had a certain attraction to him, not babysitting a herd of people, but teaching them what he had learned over the years. Except for his house, everything was gone. He would have to start over. Could he do it alone? Could he trust the military to fulfill any promises Reed might make in their behalf?
“If I did, what help would I get?”
Reed smiled. “Food, weapons, equipment – anything, well, almost anything you need. Most of all, you would provide authority, enforce the law. You were a deputy.”
He wondered how they would react to Jake’s Laws, but decided they might find them a little harsh. “A bulldozer for the roads?” he asked.
“I’m sure they will help you locate one. They intend to clear the rails between here and Phoenix and Tucson to Yuma. Eventually, they will run trains throughout the entire southwest linking new settlements. We can build new cities on the bones of the old.”
“I like Tucson. I like my home.”
“It’s a strategic location. They won’t abandon it.”
“I’ll think it over. If I decide, how do we contact them?”
Reed frowned. “That might present a problem. I had a satphone in the RV. I contacted them once a week. It’s gone now. I guess we wait until they contact us. Now what?”
Now what? That was a good question. Did he want to sit around drinking whiskey and crying over lost possessions, or put the bit between his teeth and soldier on? If Jessica was alive, he would find her. He wouldn’t rest until Levi was in the ground, or at least lying dead on it. Any chance at rebuilding would be useless if Levi was still around. He was chaos wearing a Stetson. Such men had no place in the new world. It was men like Jake’s job to bring them to justice, justice according to Jake’s Laws.
He set the whiskey bottle on the table and rose from his chair, a little shaky from the half bottle he had consumed and fatigue. “I need to locate a vehicle and find Jessica.”
“Wait a day or two and I’ll help you.”
Could he afford to wait a few days to rescue Jessica? He didn’t really have a choice. He didn’t know where she was. He was certain Levi would find a way to let him know where they were once he was ready for another confrontation. Their business wasn’t finished yet.
“There are three women on their way up, some of Levi’s bunch. They survived the flood. I don’t know if we can trust them, but they can nurse you back to health.”
Reed smiled.
“What?” Jake asked.
“You saved them, didn’t you?”
“I might have pointed out which way to run.”
“Thanks. I saw how the women were treated. I think we can trust them.”
“Well, you need to rest so your wound can heal. I left the ATV outside the canyon last night on high ground. Maybe it survived the flood.”
“Jake?”
Jake looked down at Reed. His face was pale from the exertion of talking and fighting the pain. “Yeah?”
“I didn’t like lying to you. I had to find out about you.”
Jake smiled. “It’s okay, Alton. I guess we both had our secrets.”
“Thanks for coming back.”
Jake left the room feeling ashamed at how he had treated Reed. If they had both trusted each other a little more, they could have avoided much of the problems they had faced. His pig-headed stubbornness to do things himself and follow only his self-written laws had almost cost him his life and the lives of the only two people he cared about. Maybe it was time to relinquish a little authority and follow Reed’s advice.
He met the women at the foot of the steps. “There’s a wounded man up there. Do what you can for him. Most of the food is gone, but you’ll find a crate of MREs in the closet.”
The pregnant woman spoke for the others. “Thank you for saving us. We …”
Jake waved her to silence. He had enough thanks for one day. “Take care of Alton.”
He walked past the ruins of his ranch without looking at them. He had seen enough already. The loss was almost more than he could bear. It wasn’t until he reached the first of the mud-encrusted bodies rising from the mud like
zombies escaping their graves that he felt remorse for what he had done in unleashing the dam. Levi’s men would have killed him, had in fact tried to do so, but breaking the dam now seemed somehow like cheating. Much like using his zombie army the first time he had encountered Levi. In the dark during the heat of battle, such thoughts had not arisen. He wanted them dead at any cost. Seeing their sun-bloated corpses littering the muddy canyon floor drove home the consequences of his actions.
Like a powerful one-two punch, the realization that rather than preparing for an apocalypse, he had been stumbling blindly through life since before E-Day, before he had the end of the world to blame everything on. The anger and self-banishment from the human race that had begun in Afghanistan had been reinforced as a deputy sheriff. Men did terrible things to one another for little reason. He had witnessed such horrors almost every day on the job. He, himself, had done terrible things in Afghanistan, things he had tried to bury deep in his subconscious, but like a black viscous pool of regrets, it had slowly bubbled to the surface and tainted his personal relationships with his fellow human beings, especially women. His distrust of Reed and of Jessica had placed them both in danger. He had almost lost Reed. He had lost Jessica. Only when a man loses everything can he truly be free.
Free to do what? He would find her, if at all possible. Somehow, he knew Levi would be in touch.
He found the ATV intact, high enough above the flood plain to survive the deluge. The seats were soaked and the water was three inches deep in the floorboards. He cranked it and drove it up an incline to spill out the water. Back at the ranch, vultures, drawn by the stench of death, circled overhead, a cloud of black undulating lazily on the thermals rising from the canyon floor. He knew he should bury the bodies, but hated to deprive the vultures of a meal.
To his astonishment, when he entered the house, Reed was sitting on the sofa. His face was flushed from the effort, but he had at least managed to make it from the bedroom. Two of the women fawned over him, trying to spoon feed him more soup. The third was preparing more MREs.
“You should be in bed.”
Reed shook his head and tapped his chest. “I’m still having a little trouble breathing. I think it’s the humidity. This monsoon weather feels like Florida. Sitting up is better. I’ll be all right. I have these pretty nurses to help me.”
One of the women, barely sixteen, tittered.
“You make a lousy patient.”
“You make a lousy host. Where’s the beer?”
“I’ll see if our former guests left any.”
The refrigerator had been ransacked, as had the pantry, but a few loose beers had managed to roll beneath a shelf and escape detection. He popped the top of one over the sink and allowed the hot beer to spew; then dropped a few cubes of ice in a glass and poured the beer over it.
“Drink it fast before the ice dilutes it,” he said, as he handed the beer to Reed.
He took a sip and nodded. “I don’t think he’ll hurt her again.”
Jake winced at the mention of Jessica. “Again?” He noticed the look of rage on Reed’s face and guessed at how Levi had hurt her. “That’s something else I owe him for.”
“He’ll keep her safe to use as bait. He’ll make sure everything is just the way he wants it before he contacts you. He won’t make the same mistake again.”
“No, but he keeps making the biggest mistake. Why doesn’t he just leave? We’ve beaten him twice. If he releases Jessica, I’ll forget about him.”
Reed shook his head. “No you won’t.”
Jake sighed and nodded. Reed was right. Some things can’t be undone. “Yeah. He bothers me. Men like him don’t deserve to live.”
“I tend to agree with you.”
Jake snorted in surprise. “You? I thought you were all for justice.”
Reed took another longer swig of beer. “Sometimes justice comes from the barrel of a gun.”
“There’s hope for you yet.”
Reed leaned forward in his seat and winced at the effort. One of the women pressed him back in his seat, took his glass from him, and set it down on the coffee table.
“Stay still,” she said.
Reed ignored her. His eyes bore into Jake’s as he said, “There’s a time for revenge and a time for justice. In this instance, both can be meted out simultaneously, just as long as you remember that your primary responsibility is to free Jessica.”
Thinking of Jessica in Levi’s hands sent a cold shiver running through Jake’s body. God only knew what Levi had already done to her. Would he take out his anger of him on her? Reed was right. He wanted Jessica back more than he wanted Levi dead, but the two outcomes were now inexorably intertwined. Levi would see to that. He doubted he could accomplish one without first achieving the other.
“I’ll bring her back,” he promised Reed. “I’ll bring her back, or I won’t be back at all.”
23
June 30, 2016 Tucson Mall, Tucson, AZ –
She had endured their ceaseless torment for two days and nights. Sleep had become almost impossible, limited to short cat naps which were then interrupted by the zombies’ wailing and their renewed attempts to get to her through the door. She had resorted to wads of paper towels shoved into her ears to dampen the sound. She was beginning to hope that Levi would return, hoping he hadn’t left her to die alone and in the dark.
In the two days since their miraculous escape from Jake’s ranch moments ahead of the wall of water rushing down the canyon, or rather Levi’s escape with her as his prisoner, she had feared for her life. Levi’s mood was such that she did nothing to antagonize him, certain that he would kill her in a homicidal rage. As long as she was still alive, Jake would find her. He had risked all and lost all to save her and Reed. Her heart had raced with joy when she had glimpsed him outside the tent. It had cried in pain, as she saw the wall of water rushing down on him. She chose to think he was still alive. He was a survivor. He would come for her.
She was in the Tucson Mall. She had recognized it by its silhouette against the pre-dawn sky. The roar of the nearby Rillito River drowned out Levi’s curses, as he pushed her inside through the rear door of Forever 21, a clothing store. He hadn’t given her time to explore her surroundings before shoving her into a cleaning closet and locking the door.
He had opened the door several hours later to glare silently at her. She had expected the worst, but he had tossed in a bottle of water, a bag of stale potato chips, and pull-open tab can of pork and beans. She couldn’t believe that Levi still wanted to kill Jake. That such hatred could drive a man beyond reason confused her. He had spent so much effort in surviving, why would he risk his life for revenge?
“You must really hate him.”
He closed his eyes and lifted his head. A look of ecstasy turned his face into a mask of evil. When he finally looked at her, he was smiling. “Oh, I hate him all right. He epitomizes all I detest in life. He’s a cop. The law. People like him have hounded me all my life. They beat me and tossed me away like so much garbage; left me to die with the other disposables. I owe somebody. He’s as good a target as any. We make quite a pair, he and I. We understand each other. He knows what it is to be alone, and have everything ripped away. He hates me like I hate him. Our face off is as inevitable as dawn, as irrevocable as Judgment Day.”
“He’ll kill you,” she said.
He took a step toward her. She backed away as far as she could, but he stopped a few steps away from her.
“He’ll have to get to me first. This time I’ve raised an army of my own. We’ll see just how good Jake Blakely really is.”
Jessica’s heart sank. She didn’t think Levi cared if he died as long as he could take Jake with him. Then, he had opened the store’s front door and let in the zombies before escaping out the rear door. No prison could have been more perfect or more deadly.
* * * *
Gunfire outside the door awakened her. At first, she had thought Jake had found her. That hope was dashed as the
door opened to reveal Levi standing in the pool of moonlight. With his goatee and the brim of his hat turned up like horns, he presented the silhouette of a devil.
“Come with me,” he said.
When she reached the door, he grabbed her, clamped her hands behind her back, and tied them with rope. The zombies inside the store lay dead on the floor, their blood staining the tile floor. He marched her through the mall, past Macy’s, past a bath and beauty store, whose fragrances barely concealed the stench of rotting food and decaying corpses. She spotted several zombies in the distance, moving through the shadows, but they were moving toward the source of the gunfire in Forever 21. The sounds of glass crunching as the creatures trod through shattered glass revealed that more were inside the mall than she could see. When she glimpsed the stairs between the lower and upper levels, she at first thought he was taking her upstairs. Then he played his flashlight on a wooden barricade erected to block access from the top level, and then a second barricade pushed aside at the bottom of the staircase. Her heart tightened in her chest. She tried to stop, but Levi grabbed her by the neck and squeezed to keep her feet moving. He dragged her up the stairs to the first landing, and then secured her to the railing with a length of rope. She had just enough slack to stand and move a couple of paces. The scuffing feet of zombies grew louder.
“Don’t leave me here,” she pleaded.
“You’ll be safe for a while. If Jake doesn’t come for you, or if I don’t come back, well, you’re going to die a horrible death.”
His maniacal laughter made her shiver, as it echoed through the cavernous space and continued for far too long. She suspected that he was becoming unhinged by his obsession for revenge. No sane man would go through so much trouble simply to kill another. Then she realized that Jake’s death was not what he was after. First, he wanted Jake to suffer. Placing her in his path, with the threat of death hanging over her, would force Jake to decide which he wanted more – to free her or to kill Levi. To add insult to injury, he wadded up a rag that tasted of sweat and shoved it into her mouth, securing it in place with a second rag.