“…and leave you without Zombie Barbie?” I make a joke out of my constant turn of bad luck.
“You’ve clocked your timecard ZB,” Aimes calls from still under the dash. “Let’s not go overachiever on us and try for overtime. Okay?”
“We haven’t even reached the store, yet?” Lawless teases her, trying to coax her to the bench seat again.
“Exactly!” she says retreating deeper into the small space like a startled animal.
“How much further?” I ask, fighting through the waves of flames from the flesh of my stomach.
“It’s already opening up,” he says.
I look to where Lawless is driving to watch the small road widen as buildings begin to appear. Abandoned office spaces expand to larger abandoned buildings where commerce took root providing a way of life for the area.
We have already learned where there are larger spaces there are larger chances that we will not be the only things around. The virus took hold of people in the middle of their everyday life. People fell victim at work, on errands, at schools and now we are driving into the heart of so many of those activities with one hiding, one injured and one growing more manic by the day. The A-Team, we are not.
In the darker corners where the sun can’t quite reach, snow has piled into some spots of the larger parking lot we turn into. It’s a collaboration of shared rows of white lines between the many stores that once owned this spot. The type of place most would try to avoid during holiday hours and crowded weekends because of the long row after row of vehicle torture to park. It is a different type of torture to see them all empty. Like thrill-seekers who continue to ignore the warnings around them, we drive right through the same long rows ignoring their silent warnings. It’s only thrilling to one person and that person’s thrills are becoming darker as he discovers more needs to vent against.
His eyes light up the way most do when seeing a long, lost friend. Sitting alone like a kid in time-out waits Lawless’ pride and joy. The sun has melted the snow from the bike leaving long lines on the black demon of his. The low profile bike waits for him, stranded and alone, as if daring anyone but its owner to touch it with its painted skull watching us from the gas tank. I know it is an inanimate object, but I fully expect a skeletal middle finger any moment from it to match the look the skull seems to be giving us. It’s as if it knows somehow its owner left it behind and it’s not a happy reunion. Not for the bike anyway. Lawless might just start bouncing beside me here at any moment. If you ever want to watch a mood swing from one of our guys, aim your actions towards their bikes. Unlike Aimes, just make sure it’s the mood swing you want if you do.
He sits when he parks the truck, just staring at his bike. His eyes roam the long lines of it as if it were a nude woman under him. His smile matches his appreciation of the view.
“You going to stroke off while we wait, or can we please go back now?” Aimes’ remark cuts through his sightseeing but it doesn’t damper his smile.
Lawless wastes no time mounting his warhorse once he is out from the truck. He bounces to test the tires from being exposed the constant rise and lowering of the outside temperature and it reminds me even more of a kid on a toy. It stalls the first two times as if it is pouting, but when he finally finds the sweet spot of the throttle, it roars under him as he twists the handle revving it a few times for his own enjoyment.
“Let’s just announce to the world where we are.” Aimes’ sour mood continues to cover her remarks.
“You knew he was going to do it,” I tell her, positioning myself behind the wheel. “When have they ever gotten on them and just started them? It’s a dick thing I’m sure.”
“Yeah, it’s a “dick thing” alright.”
“You know what I meant…”
She sits, crossed arms, staring out to the rider beside us. “He’s going to freeze.”
“Then I guess we won’t have to worry about that “dick thing” anymore.” I tell her finally earning a smile from her lips.
Lawless nods at me from astride his best friend and obsession wrapped in one. His sunglass-covered face still wears the half-smirk of amusement as it purrs under him waiting for the throttle again like a woman waiting for the kiss on the back of her neck to let her know the ride is about to begin.
Aimes is right. He is going to freeze and he is going to love every second of it. He told me once that unless I was a rider, I wouldn’t understand it. Sitting in the warmth of my truck, I’m okay with not understanding it and the many other things about their little toys.
He follows in my path as I lead us back to the school. I weave through the long rows as if other cars are parked around us and he follows the same path with his smile growing larger the lower he leans the bike. Even Aimes is laughing at his antics as she watches him from the mirrors. There are so few chances in the life we live now for this freedom. It’s completely wasteful of our time and resources as we cut figure eights and rush at high speeds around the lot.
We should be sneaking away, not testing our vehicles’ limits to robust laughter. We shouldn’t be risking injury with medical supplies so low. Especially with how my luck has been running the last few months we should not be doing this, but in this moment, this small sliver of time, we are happy. I don’t feel the pain of my stomach. Aimes doesn’t feel the pain of Rhett’s betrayal. Lawless doesn’t feel the weight of the world on his shoulders. We are light with laughter and glowing with the youth which has been stolen from us. This is how life should be for us.
I wonder often when I am resting, avoiding the torturous minions of my mind, where would we be today if life hadn’t distorted so abruptly. There was talk of a wedding once, of children with his eyes and my attitude. Now, the only talk is of surviving as tomorrow is nothing more than a passing hope to discover. A hope we are about to rediscover. To reach home, we have to go back through what we left waiting for us. We have to go back through the people who have also had their tomorrows and hopes stolen.
CHAPTER 25
Lawless coasts from side-to-side behind me letting the bike swoop with his movement. It’s almost dizzying to watch. The smile hasn’t relaxed its hold on his face one inch.
Aimes is watching him as if she is afraid at any moment he will be lost forever. Her eyes dedicatedly follow his every swing. “We should have gotten his bike for him days ago.” She meant it as a joke, but watching his newfound peace, I tend to agree.
“If you’re not a rider, you wouldn’t understand.” We both spontaneously mock the line that has been forced down our throats since starting work at Grit. We can’t help but also share a smile that slowly builds to laughter.
Aimes and I haven’t been on the same ground as we were before. Just as reality stole J.D.’s sanity, it is stealing our pixie’s smile. Her wit, which was once so abundant, is sheltered and hidden under a rock of anger. I see the same fissures forming under her that cracked the solid surface of our leader. This world just doesn’t kill the ones you love to steal them from you. It can steal them slowly, robbing you of the days with them just the same while they are very alive and kicking.
Overcome with my thoughts I hear myself say, “I miss you.”
It turns both our heads to each other with the shock of hearing it aloud. There is a space of dreaded time as I wait to hear her reaction, but she only has blue eyes that swim in a dammed river. She nods, shutting those eyes before the dam can break, spilling forth more than just the tears she is keeping at bay.
“It’ll get better,” I whisper to her the lie we are all telling ourselves these days when the thoughts become too dark and the burdens too heavy. She doesn’t believe it any more from my mouth than when it falls from hers, but she nods anyway.
“It was weird seeing you on that table like that.” She is watching something in the tree line only her eyes can see. They stare with such intensity I almost imagine I too can see something. “You’re always the brave one; the strong one. Nothing scares you. Whatever has to be done, you just do it,
but to see you all tore up like that, I think that is when it really hit me.” She turns to me slowly like an animated doll. Her blue eyes are vacant as if they are painted on and not the shining pools of mirth that normally adorn her face. She says, “We are all going to die, aren’t we? They are going to kill us all and we can’t stop them.”
Later when I have time to think about this moment, I will wish I had said a million different creative things; the type of things that only hindsight can gift your tongue. Right now, all I can do is try to place some style of bandage over the hurt she is feeling. “That’s not true. We’ve come this far; we can make it. We are fighters. We have our family. That has to count for something…” Even to me, I sound lame as I am rushing through the words I think will help her. I’m that gym teacher who tries to reassure you it’s okay if you suck at every sport. We all have something within us that make us special and that is what counts. Obviously, the teacher never tells you who to see for the counting.
“Our family is falling apart. It literally is killing each other.”
“The men have fought before,” I say, shrugging as if this civil war of a divide is nothing but an amused past time for them. “They will get over it. Men do that. They will punch each other in the face, have a couple of drinks and all will be well again. Just with slightly different noses and few extra scars. No big.” I smile at her, but only her blank eyes stare out at me.
“Not this time,” she hoarsely whispers. “No, not this time.”
Her shift in character worries me. It’s almost alarming to see her like this. It’s more alarming to know I have no idea how to fix it. Not one tiny inch of it.
“We are all going to die, and there is nothing we can do about it,” she whispers to the windshield with her sightless eyes still staring forward.
“We’ll be okay…” I reach for her as she turns to me, finally with life in her eyes.
She asks me, dares me even with one simple question to prove what I am saying is true. “Then where are your Angels?” As my hand floats away from her, she wins. She wins and turns back to the windshield without a smile to declare it on her face. “Here we go,” she says with sorrow as if she is prepared for this to be the final stand.
She’s right about half of it. We have found the greeting party we left standing in the road. Their numbers are dramatically lower, but enough still stand before me to flutter the pit of my stomach. I know the original plan will not work with Lawless behind us. We were lucky escaping from the cabin that night. The Risen were not fully aware of us as we sped through the thick fallen leaves of fall. They are aware now and our luck won’t hold true a second time.
My eyes meet with the man behind me, but with his dark glasses, all I can register for confirmation is his blank face as his mind works to figure out a plan. “I’m going to shield him.” I hear the first rambling of thoughts flow together. “It’s going to put them on that side. Scoot in.”
Aimes has already started sliding over to my side before I finish the hastily put together plan. I glance up again into the rear mirror and begin to slow the truck, coasting it to the left. As the sun slices through the bare tree limbs, it lands on the dark glasses letting me glimpse the eyes behind them. I watch them as they waver side to side as he pulls the plan into his mind. He nods, finally putting it together. His face sets to a deeper frown of concentration.
I leave just enough space on the side of the road for him to slide beside the long bed of the truck. If the truck should swerve to any degree, it will hit him, sending him under the same tires he used to destroy so many of them in a reverse karma of the act. I will have to focus not only on the patches of black ice, but also on the added weight pushing against the truck from their many defiled bodies to keep his little strip of land safe for him.
As we approach the first wave, Lawless lowers his body to hide behind the metal body of the truck. He also vanishes from the rearview mirror with the motion. He has found the truck’s blind spot and it is as if Aimes’ fears from earlier have materialized.
“I can’t see him.” Her fears impregnate my voice. “Can you see him?” I almost shout my question to her as I work on ignoring the eyes that have made us their focus.
Aimes lifts her body, bracing on the bench’s over stuffed back to support her so that she may peer through the blood-rimmed back glass. “Yeah, he’s fine.” She steadies herself and tells me, “You watch the road. I’ll watch him.” It sounds so amazingly simple, but it always does. It always does.
The Risen reach for the truck with fingers so emasculated their knuckles appear to be swollen and brittle. The skin of their face is paper-thin, shredding across the high cheekbones and sturdy chins. Their eyes are more devoid of color than I have ever seen before. The hate we have come to expect is missing from the thin lips and gaunt features. It’s replaced with desperation as they beat against our passing truck. Their outstretched hands remind me of beggars, pleading for escape from their suffering and not their murderous madness of past encounters.
“We are all going to die…” My thoughts escape from me again and this thought startles Aimes just as much as my last train of vocal disaster.
“Why don’t we try not to focus on my little break down right at this high speed moment?” She is watching the invisible body of Lawless, but her eyes are roaming back to me.
“Look at them,” I tell her, trying to reassure her I haven’t become anymore suicidal than I have always been. “They are dying.”
She turns her head, glancing quickly out the window at the many faces we speed past. It’s a constant flash of images pressing against the glass as we sail pass. Their open mouths omit nothing as they file in behind us, missing their chances to reach us.
“These aren’t fighting nearly as hard as the first bowling-for-brains crew.” She watches them with the same curiosity as I had. “We are slipping right past.”
“Don’t jinx us?” I ask not wishing for anything from the evil deities that still roam the earth to call her bluff. Karma is a busy girl and I hope she stays that way for just a few moments longer.
We do though. We slip right past them with their bone-like fingers scratching along the blood-caked paint of my warhorse like limbs from a tree. Within only a few following steps they stop, tilting from their staggering like misused toys left discarded by unloving hands. Accepting their fate, their eyes close as they lose animation with bowing heads.
For some reason, I’m almost saddened to see the sight as it shrinks in the mirrors. We are all going to die. It’s now just become a waiting game to see who will die first. Though, how do you out-wait Death’s army?
Lawless throttles past us. His bike growls with our less than miraculous victory, but we celebrate it anyway. We watch as he passes us, still lowered and hugging the tank of the bike with his legs. His smile is spreading wider with the space he rapidly puts between us, and when his back tire slips on a well-disguised patch of ice, Aimes and I laugh once he recovers from his almost mistake. Karma is a very busy girl, but she is always watching.
CHAPTER 26
The deserted neighborhood is different from this angle. The once crisp paint declaring how perfect it was to live here is scarred by the seasons. The homes around us seem more depressing with the destruction so much more evident than of those on the backside we had first encountered. There are no black wooden-barred windows. None of the doors are Tetris styles of wooden layering. It looks as if this is where it all went wrong, rippling its way through the place like a stone thrown into a still pond.
Lawless weaves in and out of the debris scattered by past hands that I just roll over with the large tires. The homes range from every size but with cookie-cutter mock-ups. This was once a dream life of factory built ambitions. Even the colors of the homes are repeating chants of shades. This was the “American Dream” destroyed by American aspirations of longevity and our obsessions for perfection.
The silence is just as unsettling now as it was then. Only our tires disturb the p
eace of what has become a tomb. The sun watches it all just as uncaring as she was when it happened as she is now that we are discovering it.
The tree isn’t hard to find. The building plans of this neighborhood were once to set this piece of land apart as a meeting place for the happy families. Here they could interact on grassy stretches of picnic-perfection. What it serves now is such defilement to that idea it’s shaming.
I kill the engine of the truck, but neither Aimes nor I make any motion to leave the safety of it. The large windshield shows us it all again, and it’s as close as we wish to explore it. The children still hang from the branches as we discovered them like fruit for the crows and the dark clouds of buzzing flies. Their tiny toes are mostly bones, pointing down to the piles of parents around them. Their clothes hang heavily to them from the weight of the water they have accumulated from the melting frost making them look even more skeletal.
Crows call angrily down from the limbs of the tree to Lawless as he strolls along the paths of decay. Their bodies are rainbows with their black feathers reflecting the light their eyes devour. They watch him with tilting heads and half opened beaks as he wanders their playground, disguising any emotion from what he is seeing. Aimes and I are feeling plenty. We don’t bother to disguise it.
“Do you really think Rhett knew about this?” Aimes asks, grimacing as a heavy black bird lands on one of the hanging children’s head.
“He did seem surprised by it when we found April,” I say pulling back the film on the memory as I try to focus on Rhett’s reaction.
He was stunned like the rest of us, I’m sure. I remember his eyes following the trail of horrors as each sight dragged us deeper into the madness. Was he stunned to discover it or to see it? Did he finally have to put what were once only words to Kodak-colored boldness?
The Risen (Book 4): Courage Page 20